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VOCATIONAL 
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THE HANDBOOK SERIES 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 



Compiled by 

EMILY ROBISON 

'; 

Second and Revised Edition 
By JULIA E. JOHNSEN 



NEW YORK 

THE H. W. WILSON COMPANY 

LONDON: Grafton & Company 

1921 



LC /o^3 



Published January, 1918 
Second Edition, January, 1921 



EXPLANATORY NOTE 

The subject of vocational education is so broad and the ma- 
terial is so widely scattered that this attempt has been made to 
i-epresent in one volume the leading points of view in the dis- 
cussion. Both vocational education in general and teaching 
in the public schools of industrial, commercial and household 
art subjects, have been covered. 

This source book may be helpful to teachers of vocational 
education and students who are training to be public school 
teachers, as well as people who have only a general intelligent 
interest in education, by outlining the subject as a whole and by 
directing, through its bibliography, the development of investiga- 
tion in any of the various phases of the subject. No attempt 
has been made to duplicate the material in the excellent volume 
compiled by Meyer Bloomfield on vocational guidance. 

The practical examples were chosen in the hope that they 
might stimulate other educators to further effort in solving the 
problems of education for all the members of their communities. 

E. R. 
April, 10, 1917. 



EXPLANATORY NOTE FOR 
SECOND EDITION 

In this new edition of Vocational Education students and 
readers are offered a bibliography brought down to date by the 
inclusion of nearly three hundred selected references to recent 
material and an addition of fifty pages of new reprints. 

Since the first edition of this Handbook was issued the func- 
tions of the Federal Board for Vocational Education have been 
enlarged, following the passage on June 27, 1918, of the Smith- 
Sears Act. The purpose of this Act was to promote the voca- 
tional rehabilitation and return to civil life of disabled persons 
discharged from the military or naval forces of the United 



vi EXPLANATORY NOTE 

States, and subsequently, in the current year, to execute the In- 
dustrial Rehabilitation Bill. It has been considered desirable, 
therefore, to provide inclusion in the bibliography and reprints 
of a limited amount of material on these new, doubtless to 
be increasingly important to the growing social consciousness, 
aspects of Vocational Education. 

Julia E. Johnsen. 
November i6, 1920. 



CONTENTS 

Bibliography xi 

Introduction i 

Phases of Vocational Education for Youth 

Home, H. H. Cultural and Vocational Education 

School and Society 5 

Williams, L. A. The Reliance of Democracy 

Educational Monthly 1 1 

Branson, E. C. The Progressive School : Its Relation to 

Community Industrial Life Educational Monthly 17 

Elliott, Edward C. Securing Equality of Opportunity 

National Education Association. Proceedings 20 

Davenport, Eugene. A Phase of the Problem of Universal 

Education. National Education Association. Proceedings 23 

King, Bertha Pratt. Vocational Education for Girls 34 

Dooley, L. H. The Abstract-minded and the Motor-minded 

Child 35 

Davenport, Eugene. Federal Aid for Vocational Education 36 
Snedden, David. Federal Aid for Vocational Education 39 
Elliott, Edward C. Federal Aid for Vocational Education 39 
Dyer, Franklin B. Federal Aid for Vocational Education 39 
McVey, Frank L. Federal Aid for Vocational Education 42 

Industrial Education 

Addams, Jane. The Spirit of Youth and Industry 43 

Beach, Walter G. The Danger of Unskill 

Popular Science Monthly 52 

Dewey, John. Need of an Industrial Education in an In- 
dustrial Democracy 

Manual Training and Vocational Education 61 

Three Stages in Industrial Education 

Manual Training and Vocational Education 67 

Schneider, , Herman. Work as Related to Modern Indus- 
trial Conditions 68 

Hanus, Paul H. Industrial Education. .. .Atlantic Monthly 73 



viii CONTENTS 

Henderson, Ernest N. Psychological and Social Need for 

Constructive Hand Work 

National Education Association. Proceedings 80 

Dooley, William H. Special Need of the Ne'er-do-well.... 91 

Leavitt, F. M. Some Sociological Phrases of the Movement 

for Industrial Education 

National Education Association. Proceedings 94 

Rapeer, Louis W. Industrial Hygiene and Vocational Edu- 
cation. .. .National Education Association. Proceedings loi 

Graves, Frank Pierrepont. Industrial Education Abroad.. 106 

Woolman, Mary Schenck. New Requirements Made by the 
Trade Schools iii 

Martin, John. Vocational and Occupational Education in 

New York City Nation 116 

Fuller, H. de W. The Gary System : A Summary and a 

Criticism Nation 122 

Scott, Mary H. A Girl's Trade School Course in Dress- 
making Journal of Home Economics 128 

Williston, Arthur L. How Shall Industrial Education Be 

Organized to Meet Varying Community Needs 133 

McManus, John T. Vocational Training in Chicago Schools 

School Review 137 

Thompson, Frank V. Problems of Industrial Education 

Under Public Administration 145 

Snedden, David. Vocational Education New Republic 157 

Meeker, Royal. Co-operation of Agencies 

Annals of the American Academy 161 

Gompers, Samuel. Industrial Education and the American 

Federation of Labor 

Manual Training and Vocational Education 161 

Henry, Alice. Industrial Education for Girls 171 

Barnett, George E. Trade Agreements and Industrial Edu- 
cation 175 

Dean, A. D. The Co-operative System of Industrial Train- 
ing National Education Association. Proceedings 187 

Cooley, Edwin G. Continuation Schools 

National Education Association. Proceedings 194 

Harrison, Frank. Continuation School for Children of 
School Age School and Society 196 



CONTENTS ix 

Commercial Education 

Sheppard, James J. The Place of the High School in Com- 
mercial Education Journal of Political Economy 208 

Farrington, F. E. Secondary Commercial Schools in Ger- 
many 209 

Downey, James E. Education for Business. The Boston 

High School of Commerce 

Journal of Political Economy 221 

Agricultural Education 

Cronwell, A. D. Agriculture Enlarges Consciousness and 

Helps Adjustment 243 

McKeever, W. A. General Instruction in Agriculture.... 243 
Waters, Henry J. Agricultural Education 

National Education Association. Proceedings.. .243 

Dandeno, J. B. Agricultural High Schools in Ontario.... 

Agricultural Gazette of Canada 251 

Clark, Florence. Flathead High School, Kalispel, Montana 

Country Gentleman 254 

Gibson, E. P. Student Creamery at Duluth Central High 

School Hoard's Dairyman 254 

Smith, W. H. What the County Agricultural High School 

Is Doing for Mississippi Boys and Girls 

Progressive Farmer 259 

Stimson, Rufus. The Massachusetts Home Project Plan of 

Vocational Agricultural Education School Review 261 

Household Arts 

Parkinson, Mary. A Bavarian School of Housekeeping... 

Nation 267 

Bruere, Martha Bensley. Educating the Consumer. Outlook 269 
Hickok, Mrs. Harvey M. Business of Home-making 276 

Vocational Guidance 

Gruenberg, Benjamin C. The First Job Survey 285 

Leavitt, Frank M. Vocational Guidance School Review 286 

Wheatley, W. A. Vocational Information for Pupils in a 

Small City School Review 288 

Thompson, Frank V. Vocational Guidance in Boston 

School Review 293 



X CONTENTS 

Lord, E. W. The Vocational Counselor 

Annals of the American Academy. . 300 

Prosser, C. A. The Vocational Survey 302 



Supplementary Material for Second Editioit 

Prosser, C. A. War work in Vocational Education 

Annals of the American Academy 305 

Lange, Alexis F. New Wine in New Bottles 

Manual Training 311 

Dewey, John. Vocational Education in the Light of the 

World War 314 

Bayliss, Clara Kern. Educational Awakening. Education 317 

Gray, Herbert Branston. Opportunity School at Denver.... 320 

Dealey, William L. Theoretical Gary 

Pedagogical Seminary 323 

Dean, Arthur. Point of View Manual Training 326 

Schmidt, H. W. Neglected Opportunity in Elementary 

Schools Educational Review 327 

Bigelow, Maurice A. Elements of Practical Arts for Gen- 
eral Education Teachers' College Record 331 

Friedland, Louis S. Bases of Labor Education 

School and Society 336 

Bawden, William T. Cooperative Plan 338 

Anthony, Willis B. Schooling in Service 

Industrial Arts Magazine 339 

Goodwin, Elliot H. Is There Really a Profession of Busi- 
ness and Can We Really Train for It? 343 

Taylor, W. S. Progress in Vocational Agricultural Edu- 
cation Penn. State Farmer 345 

Murtland, Cleo. Part-time Education in Household Arts. 

Journal of Home Economics 346 

Kelly, Roy Willmarth. Harvard Bureau of Vocational 

Guidance Harvard Graduate Magazine 348 

From School to Work Survey 353 

Lasher, George Starr. Vocational Study 

English Journal 355 

Fisher, R. T. Restoring Cripples to the Industrial Ranks. 

Current Opinion 357 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

An asterisk (*) preceding a reference indicates that the entire article 
or a part of it has been reprinted in this volume. 

BIBLIOGRAPHIES 

Bridgeport, Connecticut, Public Library. Selected list of books 
on industrial education. 1912. 

Brooklyn, N. Y., Public Library. Choosing a vocation ; a list 
of books and references on vocational choice, guidance and 
training, in the Brooklyn Public Library. 1913. 

Columbus, Ohio, Public School Library. Choosing a vocation ; 
some books and references in the Columbus public school 
library that will help boys and girls in the choice of a voca- 
tion and books for the teacher, pa. Public School Library. 

1915- 

Davis, Benjamin Marshall. Agricultural education in the public 
schools, p. 132-59. Bibliography, with development of agri- 
cultural education in the public schools. 

Dean, Arthur Davis. The worker and the state ; a study of 
education for industrial workers, p. 345-55. Century. 1910. 

Grand Rapids Public Library. Bibliography on vocational guid- 
ance. 191 1. 

Harvard Bulletins in Education, no. 4. F. '17. Selected critical 
bibliography of vocational guidance. John M. Brewer and 
Roy Willmarth Kelly. 76p. Harvard University. 

Kansas City, Mo., Public Library. Reading list on vocational 
education. Public Library, Kansas City, Missouri. 1915. 

King, Irving. Social aspects of education, p. 172-6. 

Lapp, John, and Mote, Carl. Bibliography, in Learning to earn. 

p. 381-9. 
Manual Training and Vocational Education. 17 :372-6. Ja. '16. 

Bibliography of surveys bearing on vocational education. 

The four types of surveys are briefly described on p. 372-4. The bib- 
liography, which includes articles printed up to October, 1915, is excellent. 

National Education Association. Proceedings. 1910:766-74. Se- 
lected bibliography on industrial education. 



xii BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Richards, Charles R. Selected bibliography on industrial edu- 
cation. Bull. no. 2. o. p. National Society for the Promotion 
of Industrial Education. 

School Review. 26:58-64. Ja. '18. Recent literature in the field 
of vocational education and guidance. Frank M. Leavitt and 
Margaret Taylor. 

United States. Bureau of Education. Bui. 1912, no. 10. p. 41-56. 
Bibliography of education in agriculture and home economics. 

United States. Bureau of Education. Bui. 1913, no. 22. Bib- 
liography of industrial, vocational and trade education. 

United States. Bureau of Education. Bui. 1919. 46:1-103. 
Bibliography of home economics. Carrie Alberta Lyford. 
15c. Supt. of doc. 

United States. Bureau of Education. List of references on 
vocational education, prepared in the Library Division, Bu- 
reau of Education. June, 1914. 

United States. Commissioner of Labor. Annual Report (25th), 
1910. p. 521-39. Industrial education. 

United States. Library of Congress. List of bibliographies on 
vocational education. 5p. typewritten. 25c. My. 13, '18. Pub- 
lic Affairs Information Service, New York. 

Vocational Summary. 3 :95-6. O. '20. Current bibliography : 
(on vocational education). 

AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 

Bailey, Liberty Hyde. Common school and farming in his 
Training of farmers. Century. 1909. 

Bailey, Liberty Hyde. York State rural problems. Vol. 2, Chap. 
XI, XII, XIII. What is extension work? How shall we 
meet the demands in the localities for instruction in agricul- 
ture? Boys and girls contests' clubs. J. B. Lyon Co., 
Albany, N. Y. 1915. 

'♦Cronwell, A. D. Agriculture and life. Lippincott. 1915. 

Davis, Benjamin Marshall. Agricultural education in the public 
schools: a study of the development with particular reference 
to the agencies concerned. $1. Universit}- of Chicago Press. 
1912. 

Dexter, Edwin Grant. History of education in the United States. 
p. 368-70. Macmillan. 1904. 
Elementary agriculture, with brief on agricultural education. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY xiii 

Draper, Andrew S. American education, p. 291-6. Farm and 

the school. 
Eggleston, J. D., and Bruere, R. W. Work of the rural school. 

pa. $1. Harper. 1913. 
Farmers' Institutes of British Columbia. Annual report, igi6. 

p. 65-74. Agricultural education. L. S. Klinck. 
Indiana. Department of Public Instruction. What the public 

schools of Indiana are doing in pre-vocational agricultural 

work. (Educational Publications. Bui. no. 16; vocat. ser. no. 

II.) Indiana. Department of Public Instruction. Indianap- 
olis. 1915. 
Indiana. State Board of Education. Educational bul. no. 32. 

Supervised home project and club work. 43p. Indianapolis, 

Ind. Feb. 1918. 
International Harvester Company of New Jersey. How to 

vitalize the teaching of agriculture in the rural schools. 2ip. 

Harvester Building, Chicago, 111. 1917. 
♦McKeever, William A. General instruction in agriculture ; in 

Farm boys and girls, p. 120-2. Macmillan. 1912. 
Missouri. State Board of Education. Vocational education 

bulletin no. 3. Courses of study in vocational agriculture 

and vocational home economics. 45p. Jefferson City, Mo. 

Sept. I, 1918. 
National Education Association. Proceedings. 1910:1094-8. 

The place of agriculture in the public schools. G. F. Warren. 

Reprinted in Leak. Means and methods of agricultural education, 
p. 119-21. 

"In our farm-management investigations we have incidentally secured 
some very emphatic figures on the value of high school education of 
farmers." 

National Education Association. Proceedings. 1910:1098-9. 

In what schools shall secondary agriculture be taught? G. 

F. Warren. 
National Education Association. Proceedings. 1910:1103-7. 

Place of the agricultural high school in the system of public 

education. 
National Education Association. Proceedings. 1914. p. 898-905. 

The federated boys* and girls' club work. O. H. Benson. 
♦National Education Association. Proceedings. 1915:193-9. 

Agricultural education. Henry J. Waters. 



xiv BIBLIOGRAPHY 

National Education Association. Proceedings. 1915:1144-53. 
School credit for boys' and girls' club work and extension 
activities in agriculture and home economics. O. H. Benson. 

National Education Association. 1917:603-13. Results achieved 
in secondary agriculture and methods pursued in actual prac- 
tice. H. N. Goddard. 

National Education Association. 1918. 283-5. Home project 
work too small — something bigger needed — a substitute in 
operation. W. S. Welles. 

National Education Association. 1918. 287-91. New education 
in agriculture based on sound pedagogy. William R. Hart. 

Nearing, Scott. New education. 264P $1.25. p. 170-93. Vitaliz- 
ing rural education, p. 207-17. Wide-awake Sleep-eye. Row. 
Peterson & Co. 1915. 

Nolan, Aretas W. Teaching of agriculture. 277p. *$i.30. 
Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston. 1918. 

Oregon. Department of Education. State manual of the course 
of study in agriculture for the public schools of Oregon. 1914. 

Stimson, Rufus W. Vocational agricultural education by home 
projects. 468p. Macmillan Co., New York. 1919. 

United States. Bureau of Education. Bui. 1913, no. 6. Agri- 
cultural instruction in high schools. C. H. Robison and 
E. B. Jenks. 

United States. Bureau of Education. Bui. 1913, no. 14. Agri- 
cultural instruction in secondary schools : papers read at the 
third annual meeting of the American association for the 
advancement of agriculture. 

United States. Bureau of Education. Bui. 1914, no. 8. p. 11-17. 
Massachusetts home project plan of vocational agricultural 
education. 

United States. Bureau of Education. Bui. 1914, no. 8 p. 22-4S. 
Vocational agricultural education. 

United States. Bureau of Education. 1918. 44:1-40. Agricul- 
tural education. 1916-1918. C. H. Lane. 5c. Supt. of doc. 

United States. Commissioner of Education. 1912. v. i. p. 197- 
206. Boys' and girls' agricultural clubs. A. C. Monohan. 

United States. Commissioner of Education. 1912. v. i. p. 267-9. 
Review of agricultural education in high schools, 1911-12. 

United States. Commissioner of Education. 1914. v. i. p. 123-5. 
Agricultural high schools. J. L. McBrien. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY xv 

United States. Commissioner of Education. 1914. v. i. p. 291- 
318. Agricultural education. 

Introduction of agriculture into curricula of United States. 
Agricultural education at meetings of the year. 
Educational work of the Departments of Agriculture. 
Educational work of the office of experiment stations. 

United States. Federal Board for Vocational Education. Bui. 
13. 1-42. Mr. '18. Agricultural education ; organization and 
administration. Washington. 

United States. Federal Board for Vocational Education. Bui. 
21. 1-41. S. '18. Home project as a phase of agricultural 
education. 

Victoria (Australia). Journal of the Department of Agricul- 
ture. 16:555-68. S. '16. Agriculture in America. A. E. V. 
Richardson. 

Waugh, Frank A. Agricultural College : a study in organiza- 
tion and management and especially in problems of teach- 
ing. 260P. Orange Judd Co., New York. 1916. 

Magazine References 

Agricultural Gazette of Canada. 3:77-78. School fans. 

Agricultural Gazette of Canada. 3:471. My. '16. Teaching of 
elementary agriculture. 

*Agricultural Gazette of Canada. 3:1002-3. N. '16. Agricultural 
high schools in Ontario. J. B. Dandeno. 

American City. (Town and County edition) 16:134-8. F. '17. 
Agricultural education in the high schools of New York. 
State. 

Annals of the American Academy. 35:150-5. Ja. '10. Need for 
agricultural education. D. Y. Thomas. 

Annals of the American Academy. 59:51-64. My. '15. Agricul- 
tural education and agricultural prosperity. A. C. True. 

*Country Gentleman. 81 :467. F. 26 '16. Frontier high schools ; 
Flathead high school, Kahspell, Montana. F. L. Clark. 

Education. 30:352-6. F. '10. Shall secondary agriculture be 
taught as a separate science? G. A. Bricker. 

Educational Review. 41 :395-403. Ap. '11. Agriculture in the 
public schools. G. A. Bricker. 

*Hoard's Dairyman. 51 :698. My. ig, '16. Student creamery at 
Duluth Central High School. E. P. Gibson. 

Journal of Education. 73:10-11. Ja. 5, '11. Secondary educa- 
tion in agriculture. A. E. True. 



xvi BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Journal of Education. 75 :499-5oo. My. 2, '12. Aid to agricul- 
tural education. J. A. Stewart. 

Nature Study. 16:217-20. My. '20. Agriculture in the element- 
ary schools of Los Angeles City. Clayton F. Palmer. 

Outlook. 116:473-5. JI. 25, '17. New education. Lyman Ab- 
bott. 

Practical Farming. 112:251. Je. 15, '16. Agricultural education 
in rural schools. W. H. Rothenberger. 

Progressive Farmer. 31 :6. Ja. i, '16. Why boys should know 
the basic facts of agriculture. T. Butler. 

*Progressive Farmer. 31 :8i6. Je. 24, '16. What the county 
agriculture high school is doing for Mississippi boys and 
girls. W. H. Smith. 

Quarterly Review. 228:315-32. O. '17. Agricultural education 
in the United States. Edward Porritt. 

Rural New Yorker. 75:952. Jl. 8, '16. Inheritance of the farm 
raised boy. 

School and Society. 7:170-2. F. 9, '18. Agricultural education, 
what is it? Arthur Cromwell. 

School and Society. 12:214-18. S. 18, '20. Biology and agri- 
culture as training for citizenship. E. C. Johnson. 

*School Review. 22, :474-8. S. '15. Massachusetts home project 
play of vocational agricultural education. R. Stimson. 
Address, illustrated with colored lantern slides, at meeting of Harvard 

Teachers' Association in Sandus Theatre, Cambridge, Mass., March 

13, 1915. 

Science, n.s. 47:125-34. F. 8, '18. Future of agricultural edu- 
cation and research in the United States. Whitman H. 
Jordan. 

Science, n.s. 48:260-2. S 13, '18. American system of agricul- 
tural education and research and its role in helping to win 
the war. David F. Houston. 

COMMERCIAL EDUCATION 

Cody, Sherwin. Commercial tests and how to use them. 2i6p. 

World Book Co., Yonkers-on-Hudson, New York. 1919. 
Dexter, Edwin Grant. History of education in the United 

States, p. 415-19. Macmillan, 1904. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY xvii 

Eaton, Jeanette, and Stevens, Bertha M. Commercial work 
and training for girls. *$i.50. Macmillan, 1915. 
Material for this book was gathered under the auspices of the Cleve- 
land cooperative employment bureau for g^irls. 

*Farrington, Frederic Ernest. Commercial education in Ger- 
many. $1.10. Macmillan, 1914. 

"The book is a good example of thorough treatment of a single aspect 
of education." — Elementary School Teacher. 

Herrick, Cheesman A. Meaning and practice of commercial 

education. $1.25. Macmillan, 1904. 

Largely a plea for the establishment in this country of special secondary 
schools of commercial education. 

Kahn, Joseph, and Klein, Joseph J. Principles and methods in 

commercial education ; a text-book for teachers, students and 

business men. 

"This work is intended to give the teacher in the commercial school 
the broad vocational outlook upon his subject, to acquaint him with the 
pedagogical principles underlying it, and to discuss the special methods in 
the different subjects included in the curriculum. The book is intended 
to convey a knowledge of the value and contents of a business education, 
to give a sympathetic view of the work of the school, and a better under- 
standing of the needs of it to encourage intelligent cooperation. It is 
confined largely to a consideration of commercial education in secondary 
schools." — Preface. 

National Education Association. Proceedings. 1912:1043-6. 

Training in salesmanship. W. B. Towsley. 
National Education Association. Proceedings. 1912:1051-6. 

Educational value of the high school commercial course. 

W. B. Owen. 
National Education Association. Proceedings. 1915. p. 893-7. 

Factors of efficiency in secondary commercial teaching. John 

E. Treleven. 
National Education Association. 1917:326-32. Modifications in 

commercial training suggested by present world conditions. 

E. F. Dahm. 
National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. 

Proceedings. 1914:15-20. Bui. 20. Fundamentals in educa- 
tion for department stores. Miner Chipman. 
National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. 

Proceedings. 1914:27-35. Bui. 20. Training for salesman- . 

ship. Mrs. Lucinda W. Prince. 
*Pan American Scientific Congress. Proceedings. 1915- v. 4. 

p. 94-8. Is there a profession of business and can we really 

train for it? Elliot H. Goodwin. 



xviii BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Pan American Scientific Congress. Proceedings. 1915. v. 4, p. 
375-84. Elementary commercial education. Frederick G. 
Nichols. 

Pan American Scientific Congress. Proceedings 1915. v. 41, 
p. 384-91. Commercial education in secondary' schools. Paul 
Monroe. 

*Penn. State Farmer. 13:131, 152. Ja. '20. Progress in voca- 
tional agricultural education. 

Power, Ralph L. Secretarial laboratory of the Boston Uni- 
versity college of business administration. 3p. 
Reprinted from Library Journal. 42:431-3. Je. '17. 

Rochester. Chamber of Commerce. Survey of needs in com- 
mercial education (1915). Single copies free. Additional 
copies IOC. 

Roman, Frederick William. Industrial and commercial schools 
of the United States and Germany. *$i.50. Putnam. 1915. 

Stevens, B. M. Boys and girls in commercial work. (Cleve- 
land education survey.) 25c. Survey Com. Cleveland Foun- 
dation, Cleveland, Ohio. 1916. 

Thompson, F. V. Commercial education in public secondary 
schools. (School efficiency ser.) *$i.5o. World Bk. Co. 
1915- 

United States. Bureau of Education. Bui. 1916, no. 25. Com- 
mercial education : Report on the commercial education sub- 
section of the Pan-American scientific congress, December, 
1915-January, 1916. G. L. Surggett. 

United States. Bureau of Education. Bui. 1919. 18:1-11. Com- 
mercial education. Frank V. Thompson, up. 5c. Supt. of 
doc. 

United States. Bureau of Education. Bui. 1919. 55:1-68. Busi- 
ness education in secondary schools. 68p. loc. Supt. of doc. 

United States. Commissioner of Education. Report, 1915, i : 
283-7. Essentials of commercial education. F. V. Thompson. 

United States. Federal Board for Vocational Education. Bui. 
no. 22. 95p. O. '18. 

Magazine References 

American Industries. 16:25-7. Mr. '16. Commercial education 
for domestic and foreign trade. F. C. Schwcdtman. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY xix 

Educational Review. 58:161-6. S. '19. Shall the teaching of 

English be commercialized; a reply to F. Maris. John P. 

Opdycke. 
Elementary School Journal. 20:651-9; 743-55. My.-Je. '20. 

Irving mercantile corporation. H. H. Ryan. 
English Journal. 7:576-87. N. '18. Business-English situation 

in the secondary schools. Leverett S. Lyon. 
♦Journal of Political Economy. 21 :209-20. Mr. '13. Place of 

the high school in commercial education. James J. Sheppard. 

Gives some of the ideals of commercial education. 
♦Journal of Political Economy. 21 :22i-42. Mr. '13. Education 

for business : Boston high school of commerce. James E. 

Downey. 
Journal of Political Economy. 27:47-63. Ja. '19. University 

schools of business and a new business ethics. Harvey Alden 

Wooster. 
Journal of the New York State Teachers' Association. 7 :55-7. 

Mr. '20. Relation of commercial education to the vocational 

education movement. F. G. Nichols. 
Manual Training. 16:595-8. Je. '15. Necessity for high school 

commercial courses. J. W. Curtis. 
Outlook. 98:989-97. Ag. 26, '11. Business men in the making 

F. M. White. 

Tells of Eli W. Weaver and his work of vocational guidance in New 
York. 
School and Society. 10:211-19. Ag. 23, '19. New education and 

the nation's business. Glen Levin Swiggett. 
School and Society. 12:300-4. O. 9, '20. Commercial educa- 

cation. B. C. Gruenberg. 
School Review. 26:73-84. F. '18. Significant results of Mis- 
souri and New Mexico commercial education surveys. Paul 

S. Lomax. 
Survey. 41 :i66. N. 9, '18. Sharks preying on school children. 

Same. School and Society. 8:591-2. N. 16 '18. 

HOUSEHOLD ARTS IN EDUCATION 

Arnold, Sarah Louise. Story of the Sargent industrial school 
at Beacon, New York. 75p. Merrymount Press, Boston, 
1917. 



XX BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Hanszen, Oscar Arthur. Status of manual training and domestic 
economy in the secondary and higher schools of Texas. 
(Bui. no. 71.) University of Texas, Austin. 1915. 

High School Conference, Urbana, 111. Outlines for work in 
domestic science and domestic art for the elementary schools 
in Illinois. (Bui. v. 12, no. 18.) 25c. University of Illinois. 

1915- 

Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. 16:1-31. 
Jl. 25, '17. Education in home economics. Ames, Iowa. 

Leake, Albert H. Vocational education of girls and women. 
43op. *$i.6o. Macmillan Co., New York. 1918. 

Lincoln (Neb.) Department of Public Instruction. Domestic 
science: the Crete plan. Sept. '11. 
Method of teaching cooking which has been found practical in towns 

and villages up to 3,000 population. 

Missouri State Board of Education. Vocational education bul- 
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Teaching of needlework and special subjects. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY xxi 

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and salesmanship. 



xxxiv BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Educational Review. 4g -.147-67. F. '15. Education for the con- 
trol and enjoj'inent of wealth. Witt Bowden. 

Elementary School Journal. 15:476-90. My. '15. Wisconsin 
continuation schools. H. E. Miles. 

Harper. 125:213-19. Jl. '12. Dilemma of the public school. 
R. W. Bruere. 

Illustrated World. 28:717-21. Ja. '18. Training the millions. 
H. Carroll Alford. 

Illustrated World. 28:950-3. F. '18. What experts say about 
intensified mechanical training. Charles W. Morey. 

Independent. 74:1229. Je. 5, '13. Henrico plan: industrial edu- 
cation in the colored schools. 

Independent. 84:452. D. 13, '15. The Gary school plan, both 
sides ; a debate. E. M. Phelps. 
At the end of the outlines is a list of the best references on the Gary 

system up to December, 1915. 

Industrial Arts Magazine. 6:45-52. F. '17. Decade of indus- 
trial education in Wisconsin. L. D. Harvey. 

Industrial Arts Magazine. 7:405-8. N. '18. Possibilities for 
evening school industrial classes under the Smith-Hughes 
act. James R. Coxen. 

*Industrial Arts Magazine. 8:215-19. Je. '19. Schooling in 
service. Willis B. Anthony. 

Industrial Arts Magazine. 9:45-50. F. '20. Fostering self- 
directive ability in pupils. D. J. MacDonald. 

Industrial Arts Magazine. 9:56-60, 91-6. F.-Mr. '20. Graphic 
aids in analysis. Clyde A. Bowman, diags. 

Industrial Arts Magazine. 9:337-40. S. '20. Industrial educa- 
tion in the upper grammar grades of a non-directly-vocational 
school. Paul E. Klein. 

Industrial Management. 57:103-4. F. '19. U. S. training serv- 
ice and its work. Charles T. Clayton. 

Iron Age. 95:1334-5. Je. 17, '15. Works apprentice school dis- 
continued. 

"The per capita cost of the graduate, so to speak, from the com- 
pany's apprenticeship school was an important item in the decision to 

discontinue the school." 

Journal of Education. 69:567-8. My. 27, '09. Adaptation of the 
schools to industry and efficiency. A. S. Draper. 

Journal of Education. 70:570-1. D. '09. Industrial education 
from the standpoint of organized labor. John Golden. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY xxxv 

Journal of Education. 82:123. Ag. 19, '16. The Ettinger plan. 
W. E. Grady. 

Journal of Education. 92:171-2. S. 2, '20. Vocational respon- 
sibility. Enoch A. Bryan. 

Journal of Home Economics. 4:515-23. O. '12. Negro indus- 
trial training in the public schools of Augusta, Ga. E. G. Holt. 

Journal of Home Economics. 5:219-23. Je. '13. Training high 
school girls for trade work. M. W. Willard. 

Journal of Home Economics. 5:397-408. D. '13. Preparation 
for industrial education. M. E. Parker. 

Journal of Home Economics. 8:10-13. Ja. '16. Aims and work 
of the National society for the promotion of industrial edu- 
cation. Cleo Murtland. 

*Manual Training. 7:156-7. Ap. '07. Industrial Education. 
Editorial. 

Manual Training. 9:1-9. O. '07. Relation of manual training 
to industrial education. C. R. Richards. 
Read before the Western Drawing and Manual Training Association, 

Cleveland, Ohio, May 10, 1907. 

Manual Training. 11:97-107. D. '09. Better grammar grade 

provision for the vocational needs of those likely to enter 

industrial pursuits. Alvin E. Dodd. 
Manual Training. 11:297-301. Ap. '10. Elementary schools as 

a factor in industrial education. H. T. Bailey. 

An address delivered before the New York State Teachers' Associa- 
tion, Columbia University, Dec. 29, 1909. 

Manual Training. 11:418-25. Je. '10. Brief history of industrial 

schools in Germany. A. Haese, tr. by Bertha Reed Coffman. 
Manual Training. 13:193-204. F. '12. What can the high school 

do better to help the industries? F. D. Crawshaw. 
*Manual Training. 16:329-39. F. '15. Industrial education and 

the American federation of labor. Samuel Gompers. 
Manual Training.. 17:14-28. S. '15. Beginners in trade schools. 

E. E. MacNary. 
Manual Training. 17:305-7. D. '15. Where should cooperation 

end? Editorial comment. 
Manual Training. 17:409-14. F. '16. The need of an industrial 

education in an industrial democracy. John Dewey. 
Manual Training. 18:41-6. O. '16. The point of view. Some 

pertinent questions concerning industrial courses in the high 

schools. F. E. Mathewson, 



xxxvi BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Manual Training. 20:162-6. Ja. '19. Attitude of organized labor 
with respect to industrial education. 

Manual Training. 21 :39-40. O. '19. Theodore Roosevelt and 
industrial education. Earl Baldwin Thomas. 

Manual Training. 21:140-4, 181-6. D. '19. Ja. '20. Industrial 
education in Argentina. Harold E. Everley. 

Manual Training. 21 :30i-5. My. '20. Minimum essentials of 
a course of science in a machine shop vocational school. 
Joseph J. Eaton. 

Metal Worker. 82:760-1+. D. 11, '14. Vocational training in 
French cities. F. L. Glynn. 

Metal Worker. 88:350-3. S. 21, '17. World needs an army of 
trained workmen. 

Metal Worker. 88:407-9. O. S, '17. Intensified trade school 
training. Otto Kothe. 

*Nation. 102:696-7. Je. 29, '16. Vocational occupational edu- 
cation in New York City. John Martin. 

Nation's Business. Vol. 3. (Nov. '15). loc per copy. Chamber 
of Commerce of the United States of America, Riggs Build- 
ing, Washington, D. C. 

New Republic. 2:71-3. F. 20, '15. Industrial education a wrong 
kind. John Dewey. 

New Republic. 2:302-3. Ap. 24, '15. Apprentices to the school 
R. S. Bourne. 

*New Republic. 3:40-2. My. 15, '15. Vocational education. 
David Snedden. 

New Republic. 3:191-2. Je. 26, '15. Issue in vocational educa- 
tion. 

Railway Review. 62:316-19. Mr. 2, '18. Mobilizing intelligence 
— the need of corporation schools. Norman Collycr. 
Same condensed. Railway Age. 64:419-21. F. 22, '18. 

Review of Reviews. 48:98-9. Jl. '13. Cultural value of indus- 
trial education. 

Review of Reviews. 50:206-11. Ag. '14. Spread of industrial 
education. Roy Mason. 

*School and Society. 4:617-24. O. 21, '16. Continuation school 
for children of school age. F. Harrison, 

School and Society. 8:721-6. D. 21, '18. General or composite 
industrial school in the city of less than twenty-five thou- 
sand population, 



BIBLIOGRAPHY xxxvii 

School and Society. 10:155-63. Ag. 9, '19. Recent developments 
in industrial training. David Rosenstein. 

* School and Society. 11 :348-5o. Mr. 20, '20. Workers' uni- 
versity of the International ladies' garment workers' union. 
Louis S. Friedland. 

School and Society. 11:571-5. My. 15, '20. Function of part- 
time continuation schools. Thomas Wannington Gosling. 

School Review. 19:289-94. My. '11. Industrial education in 
Cincinnati. F. B. Dyer. 

School Review. 22:666-72. D. '14. Coordination of industrial 
studies with traditional subjects in the high school cur- 
riculum. Charles S. Meek. 

School Review. 27:285-97. Ap. '19. Industrial education in Il- 
linois under the Smith-Hughes law. E. A. Wreidt. 

School Review. 27:285-97. Ap. '19. Industrial education in Il- 
linois under the Smith-Hughes law. E. A. Wreidt. 

Survey. 25:674-6. Ja. 21, '11. Ranken trades school at St. 
Louis. 

Survey. 28:787-8. S. 28, '12. Results of industrial training of 
the negro. 
Excerpts from a report of F. P. Chisholm. 

Survey. 29:870-1. Mr. 22, '13. Industrial education and 
democracy. 

System. 31 :346-53. Ap. '17. Making sure of good workers 
tomorrow. Herbert E. Miles. 

*Teachers College Record. 17:1-6. Ja. '16. Elements of prac- 
tical arts for general education. Maurice A. Bigelow. 

TRADE SCHOOLS 

Connecticut. Board of Education. Trade education in Con- 
necticut. Connecticut Board of Education. Hartford, Conn. 
1915- 

National Education Association. Proceedings. 1912:411-16. 
City trade school an important instrumentality for improv- 
ing the vocational need of the city child. C. G. Pearse. 

National Education Association. Proceedings. 1914:614-18. 
Apprenticeship and continuation schools ot Milwaukee, Wis- 
consin. R. L. Cooley. 



xxxviii BIBLIOGRAPHY 

National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. 
Bui. 13, pt. 3. Fitchburg School. 

Prosser, Charles Allen. Study of the Boston mechanic arts high 
school; being a report to the Boston school committee. (Con- 
tributions to education, no. 74.) $1.25. Teachers College, 
Columbia University. 1915. 

United States. Bureau of Education. Bui. 1913, 17:1-59. Trade 
schools for girls in Worcester, Mass. 

United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bui. 215:1-269. '17. 
Industrial experience of trade-school girls in Massachusetts. 

United States. Federal Board for Vocational Education. Bui. 
no. 18. Evening industrial schools. 55p. S. '18. 

Woolman, Mary. The making of a trade school, pa. 50c. 
Whitcomb and Barrows. 1910. 
Manhattan Trade school for girls. 

Magazine References 

American Machinist. 52:1335-7. Je. 24, '20. Real school shop 
for boys. Fred H. Colvin. 

American Review of Reviews. 57:414-15. Ap. '18. Printers' 
trade school in New York. Waldo Adler. 

Educational Review. 30:178-88. S. '05. Manhattan trade school 
for girls. M. S. Woolman. 

Elementary School Teacher. 10:209-19. Ja. '10. Trade schools 
in London. C. W. Kimmins. 

Hampton's Magazine. 27:55-66. Jl. '11. Keeping the children 
m school: the successful Gary, Indiana, experiment of giving 
school children the kind of training they want. R. C. Dorr. 

Journal of Education. 82:123. Ag. 19, '15. The Ettinger plan. 
W. E. Grady. 

Literary Digest. 48:613. Mr. 21, '14. Efficient industrial educa- 
tion (at Gary, Ind.). 

Condensed from article reprinted in American Industries. 14:27-9. Feb- 
ruary, 19 14, from the Hardware Age. 

McClure's. 41 :6i-9. S '13. Children of the steel kings at Gary. 

B. J. Hendrick. 
Manual Training. 1 1 :329-32. Je. '20. Boston continuation 

school. Charles A. Bennett. 
*Nation. 102:698-9. Je. 29, '16. Gary system: a suinmary and 

a criticism. H. D. Fuller. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY xxxix 

Review of Reviews. 50:195-200. Ag. '14. Public school that 

makes for industrial efficiency : Boston girls' high school of 

practical arts. B. O. Flower. 
School Review. 19:289-94. My. '11. Industrial education in 

Cincinnati. F. B. Dyer. 
World's Work. 21:14265-75. Ap. '11. Half time at school and 

half time at work. F. P. Stockbridge. 

At Cincinnati. 
World's Work. 25:695-8. Ap. '13. Teaching real life in school. 

W. B. Anthony. 

Fitchburg public schools. 
World's Work. 28:285-92. Jl. '14. Training new leaders for 

the industrial South. W. A. Dyer. 

Shows the way to work that the public schools might do. 
World's Work. 28:452-60. Ag. '14. Whole-hearted halftime 

school and the Rev. J. A. Baldwin of Charlotte, N. C, who 

directs it. 
A private school whose work might be emulated by the public school. 

COOPERATION OF AGENCIES FOR INDUSTRIAL 
EDUCATION 

Miles, Herbert Edwin. How shall the obligation to provide in- 
dustrial education be met? The viewpoint of the manufac- 
turer and the employer, by H. E. Miles ; the viewpoint of 
organized labor, by Frank Duffey (reprint). Nat. Soc. for 
Promotion of Industry ed. 1912. 

National Education Association. Proceedings. 1907:1048-55. 
Trade schools and trade unions. 

*National Education Association. Proceedings. 1910:612-16. 
Practical system for general training in industrial education. 
A. D. Dean. 
The discussion is limited to the cooperative system of industrial 

training. 

National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. 

Bui. 20, p. 134-43. The recognition of industrial education 

for apprentices by organized labor. Lewis Gustafson. 

"I shall confine myself to this topic only so far as it relates to the 
Ranken school . . ." — Gustafson. 
National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. 

Bui. 21, p. 633-6. A final word. 

"Any comprehensive scheme of industrial education like Minneapolis 
to be efficient and enduring must command the respect and support not 
only of employers and employes individually, but of organizations of em- 
ployers and employes." 



xl BIBLIOGRAPHY 

National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. 
Bui. 21, p. 672-7. Trade understandings in Report of the 
Minneapolis Survey. 

National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. 
Bui. 22, p. 347-61. Trade agreements and industrial education. 

Pan American Scientific Congress. Proceedings. 1915. v. 4, 
p. 147-51. Cooperation between public schools and organiza- 
tions of employers and employees in making and executing 
plans for industrial education. Arthur Williams. 

United States. Bureau of Education. Bui. 1917. 9:1-79. Depart- 
ment-store education. Helen Rich Norton. 15c. Supt. of 
doc. 

Magazine References 

Manual Training. 20:267-71. Ap. '19. Launching part-time co- 
operative education on a large scale. Frank M. Leavitt. 

Manual Training. 20:272-5. Ap. '19. How Rockford, Illinois, 
is meeting the industrial education problem. U. Roy Sewrey. 

School and Society. 10:45-6. Jl. 12, '19. Cooperative courses 
in commerce at the University of Cincinnati. 

School and Society. 12:225. S. 18, '20. New York cooperative 
school. 

VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 

Adams, Thomas Sewall, and Sumner, H. L. Labor problems. 

*$i.6o. Chap. XI. Macmillan. 1905. 
Addams, Jane. Newer ideals of peace. $1.25. Macmillan. 1907. 
Association of American Universities. Journal of Proceedings. 

1917. 27-35. Modern trend toward vocational education in 

its effect upon the professional and non-professional studies 

of the university; with discussion. John Dewey. 
Ayres, Leonard Porter. Constant and variable occupation and 

their bearing on problems of vocational education. (Pam. 

E. 139.) 5c. Russell Sage Foundation. 1914. 
Ayres, Leonard Porter. Laggards in our schools. Charities 

Publication Committee, New York. 1909. 

Largely reprinted in Bloomfield. Readings in vocational guidance. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY , xli 

Bennett, Charles A. Manual arts. ii6p. Manual Arts Press, 
Peoria, 111. 1917. 

Bloomfield, Meyer, ed. Readings in vocational guidance. $2.25. 
Ginn. 1915. 
"A practical encyclopedia of the subject." — A. L. A.. Booklist. 

Bloomfield, Meyer. Vocational guidance of youth. (Riverside 
educational monographs.) *6oc. Houghton. 191 1. 

Bloomfield, Meyer. Youth, school and vocation. *$i.25. Hough- 
ton. 1915. 

Bobbitt, Franklin. Curriculum. 295P. Chap. 7-10. Training for 
occupational efficiency. *$i.So. Houghton, Mifflin Co., Bos- 
ton. 1918. 

Bourne, Randolph. Education and living. 236P. $1.25. Chap. 
21-5. Century Co., New York. 1917. 

Butler, Nicholas Murray. Meaning of Education. Chap. VI. 

Training for vocation and for avocation. $1.50. Scribner. 

1915- 

This chapter is based upon an article written for the New York 
Times Sept. 19, 1908. 

Canada. Royal commission on industrial training and technical 
education. Report, pt. 3, vol. i and 2 ; pt. 4. 1913. 

Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Fed- 
eral aid for vocational education; a report. I. L. Kandel. 
Bui. no. ID. I27p. 191 7. 

Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America. Refer- 
endum no. 14. On the report of the committee on education 
regarding federal aid for vocational education. Ap. i, '16. 
Special Bui. Je. 2, '16. 

Gives the majority report of the Referendum committee and summary 
of arguments against the committee's recommendation for Federal aid. 
Special bulletin, June 2, '16. Gives detailed statement of vote by the 
chambers of commerce throughout the United States. 

Chamber of Commerce of the United States. Report by Com- 
mittee on Education on vocational education. Riggs Build- 
ing, Washington, D. C. 1916. 

*Commission on National Aid to Vocational Education. V. I. 
Report of the Commission. 1914. 63d Congress, 2d session. 
House Document no. 1004. 

Secured free through local Congressmen or purchased U. S. Supt. of 
Documents, Washington. 

Consumers' League of Connecticut. A glance at some European 
and American (vocational) schools. 50c. Consumers' 
League, 36 Pearl St., Boston. 191 1. 



xlii BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Cooley, Edwin G. Vocational education : Report to the Com- 
mercial Club of Chicago. 2 v. Commercial Club of Chicago. 
1915- 

Davenport, Eugene. Education for efficiency. $1. Heath. 1909. 

Davis, Jesse Butterick. Vocational and moral guidance. $1.25. 
Ginn. 1915. 

"His suggestions are as practical as they are friendly, and should be 
read by every parent as well as teacher of boys and girls." — Boston 
Transcript. 

Dean, Arthur D. Our schools in wartime — and after. 335p. 
$1.25. Ginn & Co., Boston. 1918. 

See especially Chap. 3, The field for industrial and trade schools; 
Chap. 5, The opportunity for manual and household arts; Chap. 6, The 
work impulses of youth; Chap. 9, Reeducation of the disabled. 

Dewey, John, and Dewey, Evelyn. Schools of tomorrow. Chaps. 
IX, X, XI. Industry and educational readjustment; Educa- 
tion through industry ; Democracy and education. Dutton. 
1915- 

Emerson, M. I. Evolution of the educational ideal. Chap. XIII. 
*$i. (Riverside text books in education.) Houghton. 1914. 

Farm and Trades School. Report of the board of managers of 
the farm and trades school, Thompson's Island. 1916. 

Gives an historical summary and decription of its work. 
Gibb, Spencer J. Boy-work; exploitation or training? 223P. T. 

Fisher Unwin Ltd., London. 1919. 
Gillette, John Morris. Vocational education. $1. American 

Book Co., N.Y. 1910. 
Gompers, Samuel. Attitude of the American federation of labor 

toward industrial education. S : Gompers, 801 G St. N. W., 

Washington, D. C. 1914. 
*Graves, Frank Pierrepont. History of education in modem 

times. $1.10. Macmillan. 1913. 
*Gray, Herbert Branston. America at school and at work. 172?. 

Nisbet & Co., London. 
Haney, James Parton. Vocational training and trade teaching 

in the public schools. 15c. American Academy of Political 

and Social Science, Phila. 1909. 

Reprinted from the Annals of the American Academy of Political and 
Social Science for January, 1909. 

Hanus, Paul Henry. School efficiency; a constructive study ap- 
plied to New York City. $1.20. World Book Co. 1913- 



BIBLIOGRAPHY xliii 

Hartford Vocational Guidance Committee. Report, Jan., 1914. 
22p. '14. Vocational Guidance Committee, Hartford, Conn. 
1914. 

Hiatt, James Smith. Introduction to vocational guidance. (Study 
no. 38.) Free. Public Education Association, 1015 Wither- 
spoon Building, Philadelphia. 1915. 

Hill, D. S. Introduction to vocational education : statement of 
facts and principles related to the vocational aspects of 
education belov^r college grade. 483P. *$i.88. Macmillan Co., 
New York. 1920. 

Hollingw^orth, Harry Levi. Vocational psychology. (Conduct of 
the mind ser.) *$2. Appleton. 1916. 

Indiana. Department of Public Instruction. Annual report on 
vocational education. Indiana. Dept. Public Instruction, 
Indianapolis, Ind. 

Indiana. Department of Public Instruction. Educational pub- 
lications. Bui. no. 19. (Vocational series no. 12.) Industrial 
arts : State course of study for the public schools of Indiana. 
Bui. no. 20. (Vocational series no. 13.) Domestic science: 
State course of study for the public schools of Indiana. 

Indiana. Department of Public Instruction. Outlines for town- 
ship institutes. 1914-1915 ; with suggestion for the study of 
vocational education in township institutes. (Educational 
pubHcations, Bui. 19.) Indiana. Dept. of PubHc Instruction, 
Indianapolis, Ind. 1914. 

Iowa. State University. University extension. Bui. no. 9. 
Work wages and schooling of eight hundred Iowa boys. 
Ervin E. Lewis. Iowa State University, Iowa. 

Kerchensteiner, Georg Michael Anton. Education for citizen- 
ship. Rand. 191 1. 

Kerchensteiner, Georg Michael Anton. Three lectures on voca- 
tional training. Commercial Club, Chicago. 191 1. 

King, Bertha Pratt. Worth of a girl. *25c. Thomas Y. Crowell 
Company. 1916. 

King, Irving. Education for social efficiency. Chap. XII. 
Appleton. 1915. 

King, Irving. Social aspects of education ; a book of sources 
and original discussions, with annotated bibliographies. Mac- 
millan. 1912. 



xliv BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Kropotkin, P. Brain work and manual work. In Fields, fac- 
tories and workshops, p. 228-65. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 
Boston. 1899. 

Lane Technical Evening School Year Book. Lane Technical 
High School, Chicago. 1917. 

Lapp, John A., and Mote, Carl H. Learning to earn ; a plea and 
a plan for vocational education ; with an introduction by 
W: C. Redfield. *$i.5o. Bobbs. 1915. 

Leavitt, Frank Mitchell. Examples of industrial education. 
♦$1.25. Ginn. 1912. 

Leavitt, Frank Mitchell, and Brown, Edith. Prevocational edu- 
cation in the public school. $1.10. Houghton. 1915. 
"A book based largely on the results obtained in an experimental in- 
dustrial class, conducted by the University of Chicago, and in prevocational 

classes of the Albert G. Lane Technical High School of Chicago." — Book 

Reriew Digest. 

McClure, J. D. Preparation for practical life. In Benson, A. 
C. Cambridge Essays on Education, p. 188-214. Cambridge 
University Press, London. 1918. 

McMurray, Charles A. Conflicting principles in education and 
how to adjust them. p. 271-7. General training and vocation. 
$1.10. Houghton. 1914. 

Massachusetts. Board for Vocational Education. Bui. no. 106. 
Plans of Massachusetts for year 1919-20. logp. 1919. Boston. 

Massachusetts. Board of Education, i, Continuation schools ; 
2, Training classes for teachers in vocational schools ; 3, 
State-aided vocational-agricultural education ; 4, Statistics 
regarding state-aided vocational schools, 1913-14. (Bui. 1915, 
no. 6: Whole no. 431.) 1915. Massachusetts Board of Edu- 
cation. 

Massachusetts. Board of Education. Needs and possibilities of 
part-time education ; a special report submitted to the legis- 
lature, January, 1913. Mass. Supt. of Documents, Boston, 
Mass. 

Monroe, Paul. Cyclopedia of Education, 5 v. $25. Macmillan. 
1911-14. 
Treats the subject under general subject and under special headings. 

National Education Association. Department of Superintendence. 
Agriculture, industries, and home economics in our public 
schools. W. M. Hays. 

An address delivered before the Department of Superintendence in 
Washington, D.C., February 25, 1908. University of Chicago Press. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY xlv 

National Education Association. Journal of Proceedings and 
Addresses. Secretary of the National Education Association. 
Ann Arbor, Mich. 
The volumes 1910-16 were used for reference material in this outline. 

National Education Association. Proceedings. 1907:125-33. 
Influence of women's organization on public education. H. L. 
Grenfell. 

National Education Association. Proceedings. 1908:65-78. 
Adaptation of the schools to industry and efficiency. 

*National Education Association. Proceedings. 1908:159-61. 
Equality of opportunity can be secured only by proper recog- 
nition of (a) individual differences in native capacities and 
in social environment, (b) requirements of vocational effi- 
ciency as well as of (c) general intelligence and executive 
power. E. C. Elliot. 

National Education Association. Proceedings. 1908:176-7. A 
Technical High School. G. H. Martin. 

National Education Association. Proceedings. 1908:177-85. 
Agriculture, industries and home economics in our public 
schools. W. M. Hays. 

National Education Association. 1908 :888-9i. To what extent 
may a commercial and industrial training be properly included 
in the grammar-school course. H. M. Rowe. 

*National Education Association. Proceedings. 1909 :277-88. 
Industrial education, a phase of the problem of universal 
education. E. Davenport. 

National Education Association. Proceedings. 1909:288-90. 
Industrial education as a national interest. E. E. Brown. 

National Education Association. Proceedings. 1910, p. 133-41. 
Value during education of the life career motive. C. W. 
Eliot. 
Reprinted in Bloomfield. Readings in vocational guidance, p. 1-12. 

National Education Association. Proceedings. igii :26o-4. 

Progress and the true meaning of the practical in education. 

Carleton B. Gibson. 

National Education Association. Proceedings. 1910:264-5. 

Vocational education in secondary schools. W. F. Webster. 

National Education Association. Proceedings. 1910:363-9. 

Vocational and industrial school. F: P. Fish. 



xlvi BIBLIOGRAPHY 

National Education Association. Proceedings. 1912:907-12 
Relation of the elementary school to subsequent education 
W. T. Bawden. 

National Education Association. Proceedings. 1912:942-51 
Is the introduction of technical subjects advisable? W. H 
Henderson. 

National Education Association. Proceedings. 1912:994-1000 
Vocational training, old and new. T. V. Morse. 

*National Education Association. Proceedings. 1912:1203-07 
Continuation schools. E. G. Cooley. 

National Education Association. Proceedings. 1913 :573-8o 
Report of the committee on vocational education and voca- 
tional guidance. 

National Education Association. Proceedings. 1913:707-10. 
What the schools can do to meet the demand of both in- 
dustry and general science. E. O. Holland. 

National Education Association. Proceedings. 1914:150-70. 
Fundamental distinctions between liberal and vocational edu- 
cation. D. Snedden, W. C. Bagley. 

National Education Association. Proceedings. 1914:272-9. 
Substitution of work of vocational or prevocational character 
in the upper grades. 

National Education Association. Proceedings. 1914:375-86 
Harmonizing vocational and cultural education. Symposium 

National Education Association. Proceedings. 1914:572-7 
Vocational education — its social relationships. H. L. Sumner 

National Education Association. Proceedings. 1914:577-82 
Should manual training and technical high schools abandon 
their general and college preparatory aims and become sec- 
ondary schools of applied sciences. A. L. Williston. 

National Education Association. Proceedings. 1914:582-6. 
Vocational education — its terminology. C. G. Pearse. 

National Education Association. Proceedings. 1914:602-7. Use 
of the factory and office buildings in New York City for 
vocational education. John H. Haaren. 

National Education Association. Proceedings. 1915 ■■173-7- 
Vocational education— its dependence upon elementary cul- 
tural training. F. W. Roman. 

National Education Association. Proceedings. 1915:292-6. 
State program for industrial and social efficiency. A. D. Dean. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY xlvii 

National Education Association. Proceedings. 1915 :3ig-22. 
Field for the corporation school and its relation to the public 
schools. W. L. Chandler. 

National Education Association. Proceedings. 1915:322-31. 
National aid for vocational education. John Lapp. 

National Education Association. Proceedings. 1915 :430-3. 
Essence of success in evening vocational work. F. H. Evans. 

National Education Association. Proceedings. 1915 742-7. 
High school efficiency and what it means to the community. 
William H. Snyder. 

National Education Association. Proceedings. 1915 :837-42. 
Social phases of vocational education. R. G. Boone. 

National Education Association. 1917:222-3. 316-17. Why vo- 
cational education? Vocations for high-school girls. Out- 
lines. Mary Schenck Woolman. 

National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. 
Bui. 4. Industrial training for women ; a preliminary study. 
Florence M. Marshall. 

National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. 
1908, pt. 2:61-104. Bui. 6. Symposium. The true ideal of 
a public school system that aims to benefit all. 

National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. 
Proceedings. 1909:179-84. Bui 10. Education of girls. 
Adelaide Hoodless. 

National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. 
Proceedings. 1913:15-26. Bui. 18. What laws for voca- 
tional education should Michigan adopt, "Dual" or "Unit" 
control? Louis E. Reber. 

National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. 
1913 :35-9. Bui. 18. What laws for vocational education 
should Michigan adopt? Warren E. Hicks. 

National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. 
1913 :6o-5. New Indiana law for vocational education. Frank 
Duffy. 

National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. 
Proceedings. 1913 :83-95. What vocational education and 
vocational guidance mean to the future of the country. 
William C. Redfield. 



xlviii BIBLIOGRAPHY 

National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. 
Proceedings. 1913 :27-34. Bui. 18. Should Michigan have 
vocational education under "Unit' 'or "Dual" control? John 
Dewey. 

National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. 
Proceedings. 1913:111-21. Bui. 18. How shall we study the 
industries for the purposes of vocational education? Charles 
R. Richards. 

National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. 
Proceedings. 1913 :203-i6. Development of part-time edu- 
cation in a large city. W. M. Roberts. 

National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. 
Proceedings. 1913 1244-9. Development of part time educa- 
tion in the small cities. S. O. Hortwell. 

National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. 
Proceedings. 1914:149-52. If commercial articles are pro- 
duced, how should the educational value of the training be 
safeguarded? Egbert E. MacNary. 

National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. 
Proceedings. 1914:203-08. Bui. 20. Vocational training as a 
preparation for "The woman in the home." Elizabeth Cleve- 
land. 

National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. 
Bui. 22, p. 325-34. Relation of the prevocational school to 
the rest of the school system. R. C. Kelso. 
Tells of the different trade agreements in force in Rochester, N.Y. 

National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. 
Bui. 25. 1-48. Mr. '17. What is the Smith-Hughes bill pro- 
viding federal grants to vocational education, and what 
must a state do to take advantage of the federal vocational 
education law. 140 W. 42d St., New York. 

National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. 
Federal and state-aided education. 58p. My. '17. 

National Society for Vocational Education. Bui. 26:1-81. My. 
'18. Problems of administering the federal act for vocational 
education. 

National Society for Vocational Education. Bui. 27:1-91. My. 
'18. Vocational training in wartime. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY xlix 

New Mexico. Education, Department of. Annual report o£ 
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Robison, Emily. Vocational education and guidance of youth ; 
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Snedden, David Samuel, and others. Vocational education ; its 
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Taylor, Joseph S. Handbook of vocational education. $1. 
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United States. Bureau of Education. Bui. 1913, 25. Industrial 
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Suggestive for Soutkern cities with like problems. 

United States. Bureau of Education. Bui. 1915, 47. Digest of 
State laws relating to public education in force January i, 
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United States Bureau of Education. Bui. 1916, 32:1-25. 
Some facts concerning manual arts and homemaking subjects 
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Charles Harlan. 

*United States. Bureau of Education. Bui. 1919, 25:1-30. 
Vocational education. William T. Bawden. loc. Supt. of 
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United States. Bureau of Education. Bui. 1919, 30:7-63. 
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United States. Bureau of Education. Progress in vocational 

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Reprint from report of the Commissioner of education for year ended 
June 30, 1913. 

United States. Commissioner of Education. Annual report, ist 

volume. U. S. Bureau of Education. 
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Education of the colored race. 

In telling of various activities many points for local consideration are 
given and sources for further information. 

United States. Commissioner of education. 1912, i :243-56. 

Recent movements in negro education. T. J. Jones. 
United States. Commissioner of Education. Report, 1914, 

1 :239-89. Progress in vocational education. 



1 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

United States. Commissioner of Labor. Report, 1910: Indus- 
trial education. Gratis from the Bureau of Labor, or thru 
the Superintendent of Documents. 

*United States. Commission on National Aid to Vocational 
Education. Vocational education : report, together with the 
hearings held on the subject, made pursuant to the pro- 
visions of Public Resolution no. 16. (63d Congress, 2d ses- 
sion. H. Doc. 1004.) 2 V. each, 15c. Supt. of Documents. 

United States. Federal Board for Vocational Education. Bui. 
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United States. Vocational Education Board. Bui. 191 71 : 1-70. 
Statement of policies. 

Van Kleeck, Mary. Working girls in evening schools. Russell 
Sage Foundation. 1914. 

*Vocational Education Association of the Middle West. Bui. 4, 
Ja. '18. Vocational education in the light of the world war. 
John Dewey. 8p. 1225 Sedgwick St., Chicago. 

Weeks, Ruth Mary. The people's school. (Riverside Educa- 
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Welles, Mary Crowell. Glance at some European and American 
vocational schools. 50c. Consumers' League of Conn. 
Hartford. 1913. 

Wisconsin State Board of Industrial Education. Outlines of 
lessons, Wisconsin public industrial, commercial, continuation 
and evening schools. 2d ed. (Bui. no. 11.) State Board of 
Industrial Education, Madison. 1915. 

Women's Municipal League of Boston. Education Department. 
Hand-book of opportunities for vocational training in Bos- 
ton (regular college courses excepted). Ed by T : C. Mc- 
Cracken. *$i.2S. Woman's Municipal League of Boston. 
1913- 

Wright, Henry Parks. Young man and teaching. 21 ip (vo- 
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Magazine References 

American City. 16:490-6. My. '17. Vocational education in 
Holyoke, Mass. Francis McSherry. 

American Journal of Sociology. 2:352-68. N. '16. Redirection 
of education in small cities and towns of Washington. Her- 
bert G. Lull. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY li 

American Machinist. 52:439-41. F. 26, '20. Educating an en- 
tire personnel. Mark H. Reasoner. 

American Magazine. 85 :53-4. Mr. '18. Runs an "opportunity 
school." Marie La Due. 

^Vnnals of the American Academy. 46:72-7. Mr. '13. Activities 
of delinquent boys. E. L. Coffeen. 

Annals of the American Academy. 67:64-76. S. '16. Education 
for life work in non-professional occupations. F. G. Bonser. 

Some controlling factors. 65-67. Implications for vocational educa- 
tion, 67-68. 

*Annals of the American Academy. 79:263-70. S. '18. War 
work in vocational education. C. A. Prosser. 

Current Opinion. 60:57-8. Ja. '16. New education in banking 
and salesmanship. 

Current Opinion. 67:332-3. D. '19. Federal vocational board 
is declared to be a failure. 

Dial. 59:363-4. O. 28, '15. Vocational training and citizenship. 
O. C. Irwin. 

*Education. 38:380-4. Ja. '18. Educational awakenings. Clara 
Kern Bayliss. 

Education. 41 :53-7. S. '20. Summary of conclusions in voca- 
tional education. J. M. Brewer. 

*Educational Monthly. 2:12-17. Ja. '16. The reliance of 
democracy. L. A. Williams. 

*Educational Monthly. 2:18-20. Ja. '16. The progressive school : 
its relation to community industrial life. E. C. Branson. 

Educational Review. 45 :5oi-6. My. '13. The character-forming 
influence of vocational education. 

Paper read at 2d International Moral Education Congress at The 
Hague, 1912. Reprinted from the London Journal of Education. 

*Educational Review. 48 :467-74. D. '14. Industrial hygiene 
and vocational education. L. W. Rapeer. 

^Educational Review. 59:304-14. Ap. '20. Neglected oppor- 
tunities in elementary schools. H. W. Schmidt. 

Elementary School Journal. 15:191-209. D. '14. A Wisconsin 
experiment in vocational education and some of its lessons. 
Howell Cheney. 

Fortnightly Review. 114:290-300. Ag. '20. Vocational educa- 
tion in America. L. Simpson. 

Good Housekeeping. 68:73-4. F. '19. Common-sense education. 
Charles A. Prosser. 



Hi BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Independent. 73:1414-9. D. 19. '12. Educational reform. C. S 
Page. 

Independent. 79:150-1. Ag. 3, '14. Present educational ques- 
tion. 

Industrial Arts Magazine. 5 :546-7. D. '16. The Boston contin- 
uation schools. H. S. Field. 

Industrial Arts Magazine. 6:168-9. Ap. '17. Smith-Hughes Act ; 
a summary. 

Industrial Arts Magazine. 7:105-6. Mr. '18. Vocational infor- 
mation as a part of prevocational work. R. H. Rodgers. 

Industrial Arts Magazine. 8:70-2. F. '19. Seven million candi- 
dates for training. Charles T. Clayton. 

Industrial Arts Magazine. 8:293-7. Ag. '19. What and why 
of manual training. James McKinney. 

Industrial Arts Magazine. 8:471-4. D. '19. Getting together 
of education and industry. James McKinney. 

Industrial Arts Magazine. 9:175-80. My '20. Problems of the 
continuation school. R. L. Cooley. 

Industrial Arts Magazine. 9:297-9. Ag. '20. Vocational de- 
partments in high schools vs. separate vocational schools. 
Stewart Scrimshaw. 

Journal of Home Economics. 11:493-7. N. '19. Vocational 
training for girls. Greta Gray. 

Journal of Home Economics. 12:127-9. Mr. '20. Bill to amend 
the act to provide for the promotion of vocational education. 

Journal of Political Economy. 21 :243-54. Mr. '13. Industrial 
training and placing of juveniles in England. H. Winefrid 
Jevons. 

McClure's. 41:46-57. My. '13. Six thousand girls at school: a 
training for womanhood. Burton J. Hendrick. 

Washington Irving High School. 

Manual Training. 11:237-51. F. '10. Suggested standard high 

school courses in wood-turning, pattern-making and foundry 

practice. Ray L. Southworth. 
Manual Training. 13:329-38. Ap. '12. Vocational consciousness 

in manual training. A. E. Dodd. 
Manual Training. 14:105-14. D. '12. Future of the manual 

training high school in vocational education. C. B. Howe. 
Manual Training. 15:89-109. D. '13. Manual and vocational 

education. John W. Curtis. 

Work should be put on a right basis, vocational, grammar and high 
school testing home instruction. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY liii 

Manual Training. 16:529-36. My. '15. Vocational instruction 
in the high sclipol. Herbert G. Lull. 

Based on a vocational survey of Bellingham, Washington, recently 
conducted by the writer. 
Manual Training. 17:1-5. S. '15. The boy or the trade as an 

aim. Ira S. Griffith. 

Paper read before the Western Drawing and Manual Training Associa- 
tion, Chicago. 19 15. 

Manual Training. 17:251-9. D. '15. Manual training and vo- 
cational education to fit millions for their work. The Smith- 
Hughes bill, a national preparedness plan to equip this coun- 
try for holding industrial and commercial supremacy in the 
future. Alvin E. Dodd. 

Same article. In Nation's Business. 3 :p. 8-10. November, 1915, 
under the title Training for industrial life. Also printed as a "separate" 
by the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. 

Manual Training. 17:377-8. Ja. '16. Pennsylvania's new con- 
tinuation schools and employment certificates. W. E. Hackett. 

*Manual Training. 17:379-80. Ja. '16. Three stages in indus- 
trial education. Editorial comment. 

*Manual Training. 17:409-14. F. '16. Need of an industrial 
education in an industrial democracy. John Dewey. 

Manual Training. 17:585-8. Ap. '16. Is prevocational a needed 
or desirable term? F. G. Bonser. 

Manual Training. 17:702-3. My. '16. Prevocational — What's 
in a name? James McKinney. 

Manual Training. 17:713-18. My. '16. Vocational Education 
Association of the Middle West. 

Manual Training. 18:1-4. S. '16. Vocational education in 
Massachusetts ; some achievements and some prospects. 
David Snedden. 

Manual Training. 18:5-7. S. '16. Cultural phases of vocational 
training. J. N. Indelkofer. 

Manual Training. 18:180-3. Ja. '17. Three typical methods of 
teaching the manual arts. Charles A. Bennett. 

*Manual Training. 19:9-12. S. '17. New wine in new bottles. 
Alexis F. Lange. 

Manual Training. 19:50-3. O. '17. School that serves the com- 
munity. Edward G. Anderson. 

Manual Training. 19:91-3. N. '17. Community service and vo- 
cational training. Parker B. Pratt. 

Manual Training. 20:227-31. Mr. '19. True relation of voca- 
tional and general education. Andrew F. West. 



liv BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Manual Training. 20:275-80. Ap. '19. Young worker and the 
part-time school. Owen D. Evans. 

Manual Training. 20:305-9. My. '19. Study of some practical 
values of public school manual training in thirty-six cities 
of Wisconsin. Thomas R. Foulkes and Thomas Diamond. 

Manual Training. 21 :207-io. F. '20. Difference in approach. 
David F. Prairie. 

Manual Training. 21 :237-40. Mr. '20. Intensive plan of or- 
ganizing manual arts teaching. Charles A. Bennett. 

Manual Training. 21 :246-9. Mr. '20. Progress of vocational 
education. 

*Manual Training. 21 :3i6-i8. My. '20. Point of view. Arthur 
Dean. 

Manual Training. 22:4-9. Jl. '20. Intensive program for the 
manual arts. Allen D. Backus. 

Monthly Labor Review. 10:963-6. Ap. '20. Recent development 
of part-time or continuation schools in the United States. 

Monthly Labor Review. 10:966-70. Ap. '20. Vocational train- 
ing for women in industry. 

Nation. 100:493-4. My. 6, '15. Vocationism and democratic 
education. 

Nature. 103:127-8. Ap. 17, '19. Part-time education in the 
United States. 

New Republic. 2:283-4. Ap. 17, '15. Splitting up the school 
system. John Dewey. 

New Republic. 3:42-3. My. 15, '15. Education vs. trade train- 
ing; reply to Dr. Snedden. John Dewey. 

New Republic. 3:191-2. Je. 26, '15. Issue in vocational edu- 
cation. 

New Republic. 10:63-5. F- I7, 'i7- Policy in vocational edu- 
cation. 

Outlook. 110:734-40. Jl. 28, '15. A vocational school a hundred 
years old. H. Addington Bruce. 

Pedagogical Seminary. 20:259-67. Je. '13. Economic reasons 
for vocational education. J. F. Scott. 

*Pedagogical Seminary. 23:269-82. Je. '16. Theoretical Gary. 
William L. Dealey. 

♦Popular Science Monthly. 77:178-85. Ag. '10. Danger of 
unskill. Walter G. Beach. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY Iv 

Public. 21 '.271-4. Mr. 2, '18. Labor and education. Arthur E. 

Holden. 
Review of Reviews. 50:200-5. Ag. '14. Training city-bred girls 

to be useful women. Washington Irving High School. 
♦School and Society. 3:300-4. F. 26, '16. Cultural and voca- 
tional education. H. H. Home. 
School and Society. 4:433-9. S. 16, '16. Training for vaca- 
tion. Elmer A. Bess. 

"The beautiful conclusion of the whole matter as based on the con- 
ception of the science of training men, rather than on isolated interviews, 
is that the counsellor could remain on the job and keep up a program of 
vocational training after the individual has selected his vocation." 

School and Society. 5:296-8. Mr. 10, '17. Smith-Hughes act 

for the promotion of vocational education. 
School and Society. 8:102-5. Jl. 27, '18. Smith-Hughes act 

from a layman's standpoint. Paul Kreuzpointner. 
School and Society. 8:181-7. Ag. 17, '18. Why should the gov* 

ernment train for foreign service? Glen Levin Swiggett. 
School and Society. 10:509-13. N. i, '19. Vocational education 

as a preventive of juvenile delinquency. Arthur Frank 

Payne. 
School and Society. 11:271-6. Mr. 6, '20. Technical education 

and citizenship. B. W. Bond, Jr. 
School and Society. 11:280-4. M^r. 6, '20. Theory of the 

vestibule and upgrading vocational school. David Snedden. 
School and Society. 11 :5oi-2. Ap. 24, '20. Unique plan in 

vocational education. W. T. Carrington. 
School and Society. 11:563-5. My. 8, '20. Some aspects of 

vocational training. L. B. Mitchell. 
School Review. 19:85-95. F. '11. Relation of the movement 

for vocational and industrial training to secondary schools. 

F. M. Leavitt. 
School Review. 19:454-65. S. '11. Does the present trend 

toward vocational education threaten liberal culture? E. P. 

Cubberley. p. 466-76. R. A. Woods, p. 477-88. Discussion. 

Presented at the meeting of the Harvard Teachers' Association. 
March 4, 19 11. 

School Review. 23:145-58. Mr. '15. Vocational training in 

Chicago schools. J. T. McManis. 
School Review. 25 :682-3. N. '17. Smith-Hughes bill goes into 

operation. 



Ivi BIBLIOGRAPHY 

South Atlantic Quarterly. 16:209-21. Jl. '17. Manual labor 

schools in the south. Edgar W. Knight. 
Survey. 30:407. Je. 21, '13. Revolution in school control. E. 

H. Fish. 
Survey. 30:722-3. S. 13, '13. Vocational schools. Paul Kreuz- 

pointner. 
Survey. 32:417-18. Jl. 18, '14. Plan to stimulate vocational 

education in all the states. W. D. Lane. 
Survey. 35:692. Mr. 11, '16. Federal plan for vocational edu- 
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Same article. In School and Society. 3:428-9. March 18, 1916. 
Survey. 38:18-19. Ap. 7, '17. Learning for earning or for life. 

Winthrop D. Lane. 
Vocational Summary. Published monthly by the Federal Board 

for Vocational Education, v. i, My. 'i8-date. 
World's Work. 22:14721-5. Ag. '11. Practical public school; 

vocational school at Albany. F. L. Glynn. 
World's Work. 25:695-8. Ap. '13. Teaching real life in school 

W. B. Anthony. 

Fitchburg public schools. 
World's Work. 28:452-60. Ag. '14. Wholehearted half-time 

school and the Rev. J. A. Baldwin of Charlotte, N. C., who 

directs it. W. A. Dyer. 

A private school whose work might be emulated by the public school. 

VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 

Bennett, Helen M. Women and work ; the economic value of 
college training. 287?. *$i.50. D. Appleton & Co., New York. 
1917. 

Brewer, John M. Vocational guidance movement; its problems 
and possibilities. 333p. Macmillan Co., New York. 1918. 

Giles, Frederick Mayor and Kean, Imogene. Vocational civics ; 
a study of occupations as a background for the consideration 
of a life career. 252?. Macmillan Co., New York. 1919. 

Gowin, Enoch Burton. Occupations. A textbook in vocational 
guidance. 357p. Ginn & Co., Boston. 1916. 

Merton, Holmes W. How to choose the right vocation : voca- 
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*$i.50. Funk & Wagnalls Co., New York. 1917. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY Ivii 

National Education Association. Proceedings. 1912:417-25. 

School system and choice of vacation. G : P. Knox. 
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Vocational and moral guidance thru English composition in 

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Outline of course at Grand Rapids and testimony of students and 
teachers concerning it. 

National Education Association. Proceedings. 1912:1267-73. 

Use of the library in vocational guidance. J. B. Davis. 

"In the new era of public education just beginning we shall expect 
the library to take its proper place and to assume full responsibility in 
helping the American youth to find a life of true happiness and real 
success." 

National Education Association. Proceedings. 1913 :49-5S. 
High school period as a testing time. C. D. Kingsley. 

National Education Association. Proceedings. 1915 :33i-5. 
Problems of vocational guidance. F. E. Spaulding. 

National Educational Association. Proceedings. 1915 :9io-i3. 
Placement bureau. L. G. Dake. 

National Education Association. Proceedings. 1917 :432-6. Vo- 
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Lester W. Bartlett. 

National Education Association. Proceedings. 1917:443-9. Vo- 
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tion. Anna Y. Reed. 

National Vocational Guidance Association. Proceedings. 1915. 
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Oberlin College. Bureau of Appointments. Vocational advice 
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Includes letters of advice on many professions. 

Parsons, Frank. Choosing a vocation. $1. Houghton. 1909. 

Reed, Anna Y. Newsboy service ; a study in educational and 
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on-Hudson, New York. 

United States. Bureau of Education. Bui. 1914, 14. Vocational 
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United States. Bureau of Education. Bui. 1914, 41. School 
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and employment in England, Scotland and Germany. 15c. 
U. S. Bureau of Education, or Supt. of Documents. 
The first part of this bulletin is quite technical. Chapter XI is on 

School and employment. 



Iviii BIBLIOGRAPHY 

United States. Bureau of Education. Bui. 1918. 19:1-28. Vo- 
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United States. Bureau of Education. 1918, 24:1-51. Vocational 
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Bibliography, p. 102-31. 

United States. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bui. 1917, 227:114- 
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Vocation Bureau of Boston. Vocational guidance and the work 
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Weaver, Eli Witmer. Wage-earning occupations of boys and 
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Magazine References 

American Journal of Sociology. 19:358-69. N. '13. Social 
waste of unguided personal ability. E. B. Woods. 
Reprinted. In Bloomfield. Readings in vocational guidance, p. 19-31. 

American Magazine. 83:49. Ap. '17. Are you a square peg in 
a round hole? Herman Schneider. 

Annals of the American Academy. 35 :sup. 73-85. Mr. '10. Vo- 
cational direction, or the boy and his job; vocational coun- 
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Annals of the American Academy. 35 :sup.86-90. Mr. '10. Vo- 
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Annals of the American Academy. 67:54-63. S. '16. Vocational 
guidance in school and occupation. J. M. Brewer. 

Annals of the American Academy. 81:144-7. Ja. '19. Employ- 
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Child Labor Bulletin. 6:27-31. My. '17. Vocational guidance. 
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Current Opinion. 62:62. Ja. '17. Rare art of determining what 
men are fit for. 

Delineator. 91 :53. N. '17. Job lady. Mary E. Titzel. 

Education. 37:145-59. N. '17. Curriculum a means of re- 
vealing vocational aptitudes. Frederick G. Bonser. 

Education. 38:557-80. Ap. '18. Second intercollegiate conference 
on vocational opportunities for women; with abstracts of 
papers. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY lix 

Education. 40 -.447-52. Mr. '20. Community organization for 
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Educational Administration and Supervision. 6:126-38. Mr. '20. 
Need for vocational guidance in any plan for vocational 
education. John M. Brewer. 

Elementary School Journal. 16:369-80. Mr. '16. The curricu- 
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Engineering Magazine. 51 :42o-3i. Je. '16. Selecting men for 
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*English Journal. 6:664-76. D. '17. Roast beef instead of hash. 
George Starr Lasher. 

*Harvard Graduate Magazine. 26:228-33. D. '17. Harvard 
bureau of vocational guidance. Roy Willmarth Kelly. 

Industrial Arts Magazine. 6:385-92. O. '17. Diversified in- 
dustrial activities as a means of educational and vocational 
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Edgerton. 

Industrial Arts Magazine. 7:432-3; 472-6 N.-D. '18. Vocational 
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Industrial Arts Magazine. 8:41-6, 84-7. F.-Mr. '19. Experi- 
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Greener. 

Industrial Arts Magazine. 8:339-42. S. '19. What Minneapolis 
is doing along the line of vocational guidance. Bertha Van 
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Industrial Arts Magazine. 9:89-91. Mr. '20. Vocational guid- 
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Journal of Education. 83:515. My. 11, '16. Study of a vocation. 
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An outline. 

Journal of Education. 84:438-9. N. 2, '16. Outline of educational 
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Wheatley. 

Journal of the National Institute of Social Sciences. 3:110-13. 
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Manual Training. 16:265-70. Ja. '15. Suggestions toward a 
tenable theory of vocational guidance. H. D. Kitson. 
Reprinted in Bloomfield. Readings in vocational guidance, p. 103-8. 

Excerpts in U. S. Commissioner of Education. Report 1915, v. i, p. 264-5. 



Ix BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Manual Training. 17:336-42. Ja. '16. How can the faculty of 
a small high school establish a vocational guidance system? 
W. G. Bate. 

Manual Training. 18:65-7. O. '16. Vocational guidance work 
in Minneapolis. 

Manual Training. 18:229-32. F. '17. Vocational guidance funda- 
mentals. Vera Estelle Withey. 

Outlook. 121 :335. F. 26, '19. Vocational guidance of New 
York City. 

Public. 21 :858-6o. Investing in the nation's human capital. 
Dorothy Cafifin. 

School and Society, i :257-63. F. 20, '15. Problems of voca- 
tional guidance in the South. David Spence Hill. 
Result of questionnaire to 41 superintendents of schools in 14 states. 

Tells what is being done in New Orleans and problems to be solved. 

School and Society. 4:433-9. S. 16, '16. Training for vocation. 
E. A. Bess. 

"The beautiful conclusion of the whole matter as based on the con- 
ception of the science of training men, rather than on isolated interviews, 
is that the counselor could remain on the job and keep up a program of 
vocational training after the individual has selected his vocation." 

School and Society. 5:661-8. Je. 9, '17. Broader view of voca- 
tional guidance. John M. Brewer. 
School and Society. 6:505-7. O. 27, '17. Harvard bureau of 

vocational guidance. 
School and Society. 6:541-5. N. 10, '17. Vocational guidance 

through the life-career class. John M. Brewer. 
School and Society. 6:631-40. D. i, '17. Vocational guidance 

in the technical high school, Fall River, Massachusetts. 
School and Society. 8:640-4. N. 30, '18. Vocational guidance 

in Boston. I. David Cohen. 
School and Society. 11 :407-8. Ap. 3, '20. Vocational guidance 

at Dartmouth College. 
School and Society. 11:511-17. My. i, '20. Need for vocational 

guidance in colleges. John M. Brewer. 
♦School Review. 23:105-12. F. '15. Vocational guidance in 

Boston. Frank V. Thompson. 
♦School Review. 23:175-80. Mr. '15. Vocational information 

for pupils in a small city high school. W. A. Wheatley. 

Describes the course given at Middleton, Connecticut. 

♦School Review. 23:482-3. S. '15. Vocational guidance. F. M. 
Leavitt. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY Ixi 

School Review. 23:687-96. D. '15. School phases of vocational 
guidance. F. M. Leavitt. 

School Review. 24:769-71. D. '16. Vocational guidance. 

School Science and Mathematics. 20:105-12. F. '20. Relation 
of vocational guidance to our teaching of science and mathe- 
matics. A. Y. Reed. 

Scientific American. 110:312^- Ap. 11, '14. Vocational guid- 
ance and efficiency: How boys and girls are started aright in 
life. B. C. Gruenberg. 

Scientific American. 112:247. Mr. 13, '15. Educational scrap 
heap and the blind alley job. L. W. Dooley. 
Condensed from same article in Scientific American Supplement. 79: 

170-1. March 13, 1915. 

Scientific American Supplement. 79:275- My. i, '15. Why vo- 
cational guidance? B. C. Gruenberg. 

Scribner's Magazine. 61 :626-30. My. '17. Young man and 
America's opportunity. Irwin G. Jennings. 

Survey. 30:183-8. My. '13. Vocational counselor in action. 
M. Bloomfield and L. F. Wentworth. 

Survey. 36:330-1. Je. 24, '16. Selecting men for jobs; Dean 
Schneider's appraisal of various methods in vocational guid- 
ance. 

Testing of tests gives negative results in Cincinnati School of Engineer- 
ing. Abstract of article which was published in the Engineering Magazine 

June, 1916. 

Survey. 37:122-5. N. 4, '16. Mind of a boy: the future ex- 
perimental psychology in vocational guidance. Helen Thomp- 
son Woolley. 
Believes Dean Herman Schneider's lack of success is only in field of 

testing different kinds of ability of same level and that of selected indi- 
viduals. 

*Survey. 37:370. D. 30, '16. First job. Benjamin C. Gruen- 
berg. 

*Survey. 43:745-6. Mr. 13, '20. From school to work. 

VOCATIONAL SURVEYS 

Aldred, J. E., and Ilmer, E. V. Industrial survey of Baltimore, 

1914. Advisory Survey Committee, Jacob H. Hollander, John 

R. Bland, Frederick W. Wood. 
Cincinnati. Chamber of Commerce. The vocational survey: 

scope and method in Industrial survey— Vocational section 

the printing trade, p. 13-14- 



Ixii BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Indiana. State Board of Education. Bui. 15. D. i, '16. Report 
of the Richmond, Indiana, survey for vocational education. 
599p. Indianapolis. 

Indiana. State Board of Education. Bui. 19. Ja. i, '17. Report 
of the Evansville, Indiana, survey for vocational education. 
Charles H. Winslow. 5iop. Indianapolis. 

Indiana. State Board of Education. Bui. 20. Ja. i, '17. Re- 
port of the Jefferson county survey for vocational educa- 
tion. 400p. Indianapolis. 

Manual Training. 17:457-61, 549-52, 624-8, 704-7- F.-My. '16. 
Educational survey of Cleveland. W. E. Roberts. 

National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. 
Proceedings. 1914 :45-6i. Bui. 20. The Richmond Survey. 
Organization of the survey, C. A. Prosser. Methods and 
findings of the industrial survey, Charles H. Winslow^. 

National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. 
Proceedings. 1914 :65-97. Bui. 20. Recommendations of the 
(Richmond) survey committee. 

As to the problem of financing vocational education in the city of 
Richmond. M. P. Shawleey: As to compulsory attendance as a factor in 
a program of industrial education. P. P. Claxton. As to the Types of 
schools and courses of study for boys and men determined by the findings 
of the Industrial Survey: A. D. Dean. As to types of schools and 
courses of study for girls and women as determined by the findings of the 
industrial survey. Mary Schenck Woolman. As to Prevocational train- 
ing. R. W. Selvidge. As to the place of private institutions receiving 
city moneys in the general plan. Wm. M. Davidson. 

National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. 

Proceedings. 1914:85-95. Bui. 22. Organization and methods 

of the survey. C. A. Prosser. 
National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. 

Report of the Minneapolis survey for vocational education. 

Jan. I, 1916. (Bui. no. 21.) 

"Report of investigation made a few years ago into the cases of 
children who leave school before completing the course, paved the way for 
this later report." 

United States. Bureau of Education. Bui. 1915, 27- Some 

foreign educational surveys. James Mahoney. 
United States. Bureau of Labor. Bui. 162. (Misc. ser. no. 

7) :i-i33- 'i5- Vocational education survey of Richmond, Va. 
United States. Commission of Education. Report, 1915, i :433- 

92. School surveys. E. F. Bucher. 

Brief accounts of surveys and a summary giving the cost of surveys, 
by whom carried on, and size of published reports. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY Ixiii 

United States. Department of Labor. Bureau of Labor Statis- 
tics. Study of the dress and waist industry for the purpose 
of industrial education. 
Reprint of Appendix i. Bulletin of the United States. Bureau of 

Labor Statistics, no. 14s, Ap. 10, '14. Washington Govt, Printing Office. 



RE-EDUCATION OF THE DISABLED 

Barton, George Edward. Re-education ; an analysis of the insti- 
tutional system of the United States. iiQp. Houghton Mif- 
flin Co., Boston. 1917. 

De Paeuw, Leon. Vocational re-education of maimed soldiers 
translated into English by the Baronne Moncheur and Eliz- 
abeth Kemper Parrott. i88p. *$i.50. Princeton University 
Press, Princeton. 1918. 

Federal Board of Vocational Education. Bui. 15. 1-318. My. '18. 
Evolution of national systems of vocational reeducation for 
disabled soldiers and sailors. Douglas C. McMurtrie. Wash- 
ington. 

Harris, Garrard. Redemption of the disabled. 3i8p. *$2. D. Ap- 
pleton & Co., New York. 1919. 

McMurtrie, Douglas C. Disabled soldier. 232P. *$2. Macmillan 
Co., New York. 1919. 

Magazine References 

Academy of Political Science. Proceedings. 8:291-8. F. '19. 

Restoration of disabled soldiers to industrial service. Albert 

H. Freiberg. 
American Industries. 21:9-11. S. '20. Five hundred million 

human scrap heap. Dudley M. Holman. 
Annals of the American Academy. 80:40-2. N. '18. Industrial 

training for the wounded. Francis D. Patterson. 
Annals of the American Academy. 80:117-22. N. '18. Federal 

program for the vocational rehabilitation of disabled soldiers 

and sailors. Charles A. Prosser. 
Annals of the American Academy. 80:123-30. N. '18. Advan- 
tages of national auspices of re-education. James Phinney 

Munroe. 
Bellman. 23:403-7. O. 13, '17. How Canada refits her disabled 

soldiers. Aubrey Fullerton. 



Ixiv BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Columbia University Quarterly. 21 '.15-26. Ja. '19. Salvaging of 
men. David Snedden. 

*Current Opinion. 69:534-5. O. '20. Restoring cripples to the 
industrial ranks. R. T. Fisher. 

Educational Review. 57 :3i2-20. Ap. '19. Training for disabled 
soldiers and sailors. Arnold Levitas. 

Forum. 60:572-8. N. '18. Rebuilding the injured soldier. Hoke 
Smith. 

Illustrated World. 30:545-9. D. '18. Giving the cripple a chance 
to work. Stanley W. Todd. 

Independent. 104 :8-9. O. 2, '20. Remaking men. Uel W. Lam- 
kin. 

Industrial Arts Magazine. 7 :32S-30. S. '18. Some aspects of 
rehabilitation work for disabled soldiers. George C. Greener. 

Monthly Labor Review. 10:184-9. Ja. '20. Minnesota plan for 
the re-education and placement of cripples. Oscar M. Sul- 
livan. 

Monthly Labor Review. 10:442-51. F. '20. Training and place- 
ment of disabled ex-service men in the United States. 

Review. 2:197. F. 28, '20. Lamentable failure. 

Scientific American. 113:229. S. 11, '13. Educating invalid 
soldiers. Alfred Gradenwitz. 

South Atlantic Quarterly. 17:265-89. O. '18. Returning the sol- 
diers to civilian life. Chase Going Woodhouse. 

Survey. 38:1-10. Ap. 7, '17. Canadian city in wartime. Paul 
U. Kellogg. 

Survey. 38:566-9. S. 29, '17. Inter-allied conference for the 
study of professional re-education and other questions affect- 
ing men who are disabled in the war. 

Survey. 39:105-10. N. 3, '17. Crutches into plowshares. Doug- 
las C. McMurtrie. 

Survey. 40:162. My II, '18. Industrial cripples and rehabili- 
tation. 

Survey. 40:179-83. Aly. 18, '18. War's crippled. James P. Mun- 
roe. 

Survey. 43 :637-8. F. 28, '20. Three hundred thousand dis- 
abled — 217 trained. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY Ixv 

Touchstone. 4:300-5, 346. Ja. '19. Hero and the crippled sol- 
dier. Douglas C. McMurtrie. 

World's Work. 36:427-32. Ag. '18. Restoring crippled soldiers 
to a useful life. Thomas Gregory. 



SELECTED ARTICLES ON 
VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 

INTRODUCTION 



Vocational education was first confined to the learned pro- 
fessions. A recognition of the benefits derived by society in gen- 
eral from the calling of the theologian, doctor, lawyer and the 
philosopher or teacher, resulted quite naturally in the spending 
of public funds for education along these lines. When public 
elementary and high schools were established they prepared 
students for the higher professional schools or emphasized cler- 
ical accomplishments. 

Special education for business was begun somewhat more 
than fifty years ago, at first in private business schools and col- 
leges, later though less successfully by the teaching of commer- 
cial subjects in the public schools. Dissatisfaction with the re- 
sults obtained led, toward the end of the last century, to the 
establishment of commercial high schools which were more 
nearly in accordance with the present day demand for vocational 
commercial education. 

Agricultural education is now given in the public schools and 
separate agricultural high shchools have been established in a 
number of states. The passage of the Morrill Act of 1862 re- 
sulted in a large fund of scientific agricultural knowledge, much 
of which is available as a basis for subject material in public 
school agricultural courses. 

Sewing was added to the public school curriculum at an early 
date, both for recreation and as an accomplishment. Little else 
was taught in the household arts before 1870. The National so- 
ciety of sewing schools disbanded in 1901, having accomplished its 
object, i.e., the addition of the domestic arts to the public school 
curriculum. 

These are some of the beginnings in vocational education in 



2 SELECTED ARTICLES 

the public schools. Unfortunately they benefited the small pro- 
portion of students only who were able to remain in school past 
the minimum age for employment. It is now realized that the 
mass of pupils leave school at an early age and do not find any 
later means of self-development. 

Many pupils who stopped school as a matter of course before 
they were through the elementary schools were of racial stock 
which had not been accustomed to "book-learning." Many of 
them were not successful in the type of work which the school 
required. In the narrow round of deadening activities which the 
worker blindly performs at the behest of some one else there is 
none of the satisfaction which the professional man has, and the 
youth who has gained only part of the education which the state 
thinks necessary for an intelligent and useful citizen of a de- 
mocracy, loses the little knowledge that he had. 

Because the avenues of happy and useful living are now al- 
most closed to these workers training in industries and trades is 
being offered in the public schools. The worker is given a chance 
to see his work in perspective, is not confined in his knowledge 
to the one minute operation to which the modern machine often 
condemns him, and often, because of the training in actual bread- 
winning, can be kept in school past the economically wasted 
years from 14 to 16 without getting away from the very life 
which he will eventually live. 

Vocational surveys have been recognized as necessary to give 
full knowledge of the instruction which will be of most practical 
benefit to the children of the community. Labor, trade and busi- 
ness organizations have helped to gather this knowledge and 
have given much practical advice where surveys have been made. 

Vocational guidance, which has resulted from the awakened 
conscience of the community in regard to the welfare of its 
youth, gives the child at least a little choice in occupation even 
tho he may have to begin work before he has completed his rudi- 
mentary education, and the few hours of continuation school 
which he may get will do much toward retaining the education 
already gained and toward seizing the opportunity to learn more 
and to be employed in better work. The motor-minded boy who 
stays in school or goes to continuation school has a chance to 
learn a skilled trade instead of having to take the first avenue 
open to him with the chance of finding himself in some "dead- 
end" occupation after he is too old to learn a trade easily. Eli 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 3 

Weaver in New York City and Frank Parsons in Boston were 
two men who made early attempts to secure systematic informa- 
tion for the guidance of youth in obtaining entrance into indus- 
try. 

For the last ten years there has been active discussion and 
promotion of vocational and especially industrial education in 
the public schools. The bill introduced by Senator Page was 
widely discussed but failed to pass each time it came up. The 
Smith-Hughes bill for the promotion of vocational education 
passed in the last session of Congress and many states whose 
legislatures were in session will take advantage of the terms 
which were intended to promote the training of teachers in 
vocational subjects. 

April 10, igi^. 



Emily Robison. 



PHASES OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 
FOR YOUTH 

CULTURAL AND VOCATIONAL 
EDUCATION' 



The situation confronting us to-day in the field of education 
and life is one calling first for reflection and then for action. 
Vocational education is too commonly regarded as aiming at in- 
dustrial success instead of industrial intelligence, and it is too 
commonly pursued without adequate scrutiny of its relation to 
other forms of education and to complete living. 

But what is complete living? And in what relation to it and 
to each other do cultural and vocational education stand? 

In his famous essay, with the grammatically dubious title : 
"What Knowledge Is of Most Worth?" Mr. Herbert Spencer 
says in a familiar passage : 

To fit us for complete living is the function which education has to 
discharge. 

This is a good statement on its formal side; as such it can 
be accepted, without accepting, however, the limited content as- 
signed by Spencer to "complete living," and without accepting 
the scale of values he attaches to its component parts. Let us 
see. 

According to Spencer, the "activities" of the complete life 
are (i) direct self-preservation, which is instinctive; (2) in- 
direct self-preservation, by means of vocation; (3) the family; 
(4) the state; (5) belles lettres, for the leisure part of life. This 
list was arranged by Spencer in order of decreasing importance, 
for the reason that these activities seem to make each other 
successively possible in this order. 

Now this Hst of the activities of complete living is interesting 
because of both what it omits and what values it exemplifies. 
Contemplation is omitted, though Spencer himself was a phil- 

* By H. H. Home. School and Society. 3:300-4. February 26, 1916. 



6 SELECTED ARTICLES 

osopher. And religion is omitted — an omission in keeping with 
his agnostic philosophy, and illuminated by his refusal to attend 
the funeral services of his friend Darwin because they were held 
in Westminster Abbey, though Spencer was ready to see in sci- 
ence "tacit worship." As to the scale of values of the elements 
admitted to the list, it is naively naturalistic to attach most value 
to an instinct shared by man with all animals and least value to 
the refinements of life which most characterize man as civilized 
and cultured. Nothing in Rousseau, whom Spencer disclaimed 
having read, is more crass or specious than this. A philosopher 
of evolution should be the last to hold that the final effect in a 
series is the least important of all, unless indeed evolution is to 
be progressive in content but recessive in value. Spencer raised 
a good question, the perennial philosophic question in one form 
or another — what is it to live completely? but gave a poor an- 
swer, not only because he omitted reflection and spirituality, but 
also because he mistakenly identified the scale of values with the 
order of facts. 

In his "Outlines of Educational Doctrine," Herbart raises a 
similar question and gives a wiser answer. His question is, 
what are the "interests" of life? He answers: (i) science; (2) 
philosophy; (3) art; (4) morality; (5) institutions; (6) re- 
ligion. Each of these six he regards as essential ; the first three 
relate mainly to nature ; the second three mainly to man ; and 
the second group Herbart deems more valuable than the first 
for living the complete human life. The interests of morality, 
he thinks, outweigh the interests of science. People who feel 
most keenly in our day that the moral development of the na- 
tions has not kept pace with their scientific attainment are least 
likely to disagree with Herbart. Man's capacity to advance 
knowledge has far outrun his ability to use it morally. 

That these six interests are primary in human life, a review 
of man's past history or present psychology could easily show. 
But is Herbart's list complete? He omits one interest, viz., vo- 
cation. This he did because he was discussing a many-sided 
culture, not a narrowing occupation. So Greek antiquity had set 
culture and vocation over against each other ; so did Herbart, 
himself imbued with the spirit of Greek antiquity by his mother. 
But this sharp contrast between culture and vocation is itself 
now antiquated, or ought to be. Why? 

In the light of these two lists and the comment upon them, 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 7 

we ask anew, what are the elements of complete living? and 
suggest as the modern acceptable answer these six: (i) health, 
for body and mind; (2) goodness, both social and individual; 
(3) beauty, including love; (4) truth, both scientific and phil- 
osophic; (s) vocation, involving skill; and (6) religion. With- 
out health, effectiveness at every point is handicapped. Without 
goodness, beauty and truth, the three functions of the soul — ■ 
initiative, sensibility and docility, as Professor Royce names 
them, inter-related as they are — have no proper objects. Without 
vocation, man's practical ability is unutilized, at great economic 
waste, and also his whole life suffers through social detachment. 
Without religion, the whole life lacks unity and inspiration. No 
life or society lacking any one of these elements can be regarded 
as complete, and no life or society is as yet in full possession of 
all of them. 

Thus vocation is one element in complete living, reciprocally 
related to all the other elements. The term culture may be con- 
veniently used to cover these other elements, including even 
health, in so far as it is not a natural product, but is won by 
man's knowledge and its use. There is historic ground for such 
convenient limitation of the term culture ; it also helps to make 
a contrast ; but there is a deeper sense in which human vocation 
is itself a part of human culture, viz., in the sense that it belongs 
to what man has added to nature. And our education is to fit 
us to live completely. From this standpoint the problem is evi- 
dently not one of dispensing with either culture or vocation but 
of their right adjustment. 

Before suggesting the nature of this adjustment, let us con- 
sider more carefully these contrasting elements, culture and vo- 
cation, in complete living. Culture is man's contribution' to 
natural living, is man's effort to dignify the animal instinct of 
self-preservation. By vocation wc live, by culture we live abun- 
dantly. Vocation has immediate, culture has remote ends. Voca- 
tion is a limiting occupation, culture is an unlimited outlook. 
Vocation looks without, culture looks within. Vocation is work, 
culture is play; not idleness, but the play of the body in recrea- 
tion, the play of the imagination in forming scientific hypotheses, 
in energy of contemplation, as Aristotle said, in fashioning the 
forms of art, in conceiving human progress, and in worship. 
Vocation is the bondage of necessity, culture is the yoke of free- 
dom. Vocation binds one to the here and the now, culture con- 



V 



8 SELECTED ARTICLES 

nects one with the there and the then. Vocation is pragmatic, 
culture is idealistic. Vocation is narrow utility, culture is not 
inutility but broad utility. Vocation is primitive, oriental and 
Roman ; culture is Hellenic and Renaissance. Vocation is a son 
of Martha, culture a son of Mary. Vocation is the naturalism 
of Rousseau, culture is the humanism of Fichte. Vocation is 
man toiling, culture is man thinking and creating. In short, 
vocation bakes bread, while culture makes it worth while that 
bread should be baked. 

Now a contrast really reveals the deeper unity of the two 
things contrasted. We can set vocation and culture over against 
each other because they each belong to complete living. Nietzs- 
che said truly, "Man is the valuing animal." It is doubtless 
culture that gives value to vocation, but it is also true that vo- 
cation makes culture possible. Without vocation, no survival of 
culture; without culture, but little value in vocation. Ruskin 
says: 

Life without industry is guilt, and industry without art is brutality. 

Just SO, culture without vocation is like Nero fiddling while 
Rome burns, while vocation without culture is like the peasants 
laboring when there's no Angelus to ring. The cultural man 
without a vocation is a social parasite, while the natural man 
without culture is a slave to his own nature. Thus these two 
opposite interests, culture and vocation, are really one in the 
service of true living. 

The fruits of Greek culture grew out of the soil of human 
slavery. But the movement of democracy has freed the slave 
from work and freed the master from play. Both master and 
slave require both culture and vocation for the fully human life. 
Democracy tends to remove the barriers between the cultured 
aristocracy and the laboring masses. We no longer regard work 
as menial, and the idle rich suffer social disesteem. In his ora- 
tion on "The American Scholar," Emerson says : 

There is virtue yet in the hoe and the spade, for learned as well as for 
unlearned hands. 

Culture and vocation are opposites, but not contradictories ; 
on the contrary, both are true, and render each other mutual aid 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 9 

and comfort. A man's work provides motive for maintaining 
his health, occupies and more or less cultivates his mind, devel- 
ops his character and brings him possibly into the sense of kin- 
ship with the creative God in whom his religion probably teaches 
him to believe. A man's culture, on the other hand, enables him 
to enjoy his work, understand its place and service in society, 
and use it as a mode of self-expression. 

We conclude, then, on the relation of culture and vocation, 
that they are, or should be, different aspects of the one process 
of complete living, and that one and the same individual requires 
both to realize his selfhood. Thinking and doing are not two 
things, but one thing. Wundt and Royce have shown us this 
truth in psychology. A cultivated and skilled democracy should 
show us its truth in society. Complete living, individually and 
socially, is a complex unity, and to live completely is, of course, 
man's most difficult art. 

How then shall we adjust the claims of cultural and voca- 
tional education? In the light of the foregoing, the theoretical 
solution is not difficult; its practical accomplishment is the diffi- 
cult thing. The education that fits us for complete living, nay, 
that exemplifies complete living while we are being educated is 
both cultural and vocational. Our education shall help us to 
make a^iving, it shall also help us to make a Hf e. Education is 
to acquaint us with the tools and content of culture, making us 
appreciative, and, in a measure, productive, participants therein; 
and also to develop our skill in accord with our talent, making 
us profitable servants of society. Cultural education increases 
cubical living, vocational education increases social service, whose 
marketable value is but a means to an end. We are to be made 
men first, then workmen; we are to be humanized, then voca- 
tionalized. Of all vocations, that of the soldier alone makes war 
on culture and can not be humanized. 

Now parenthood can be vocationalized, but not infancy, for 
the infant's productive skill is not yet available. Even adoles- 
cence can be vocationalized in a measure, but not childhood, for 
the child's talents are not yet known, and can not be till adoles- 
cence brings them out. In an ideal arrangement we should 
have cultural education until at least the natural talents are 
revealed, that is, through the period of secondary education, 
after which education should be vocational. Before this time 
education can not be profitably vocational, for no expert in the 



10 SELECTED ARTICLES 

field of vocational guidance can tell what a child can or should 
do as an adult. 

But once again, as Cleveland might remind us, it is a condi- 
tion, not a theory, that confronts us. Five states in the union 
still have no compulsory education laws whatever. Those states 
having such laws usually set fourteen instead of eighteen as the 
upper age limit. Boys and girls leaving school at this age under 
some actual or fancied necessity find no employment under ex- 
isting factory laws or poor employment, neither developing nor 
promotive. Such conditions, it is to be hoped, will gradually 
pass. Only as a temporary concession to such conditions is there 
justification for vocational training for early adolescence and 
pre-vocational schools for later childhood. Such work as at 
present organized is half against nature, being premature, and 
half against reason, allowing inadequate time for the assumption 
of culture, the right in a democracy of every member of society. 

But the cultural curriculum of lower and secondary schools 
should recognize vocation as one of the essential elements in 
civilization, as it has not hitherto done. Such recognition in- 
volves learning by doing as a method, and a study of the oc- 
cupations of man as content. History particularly should include 
the record of human achievement in times of peace. Such edu- 
cation, though not utilizing the vocational motive, would promote 
vocational intelligence. And it is more intelligence, not more 
"efficiency," that the workers of the world need. 
I A vocational college, half culture and half vocation, is noth- 
ing against nature; it may also be nothing against reason, if the 
\preceding years have been wisely utilized in la3'ing the broad 
foundations of culture. 

' A professional institution building vocational skill on 
collegiate culture has the best warrant, from both nature and 
reason, for its existence. 

In sum, mankind requires a vocational education that is cul- 
tural at the bottom and a cultural education that is vocational 
at the top. We need agricultural, industrial, commercial and 
professional intelligence, and we need healthful, scientific, es- 
thetic, moral and spiritual skill. We want neither dumb toilers 
nor exclusive culturists. Culture shall drop down from heaven, 
and vocation shall spring up from the earth. Vocation shall be 
the application of culture, and culture shall be the halo of voca- 
tion. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION ii 

In his poem entitled : "A Grammarian's Funeral shortly- 
after the Revival of Learning in Europe," Browning says : 

Oh, if we draw a circle premature, 

Heedless of far gain, 
Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure 

Bad is our bargain! 



THE RELIANCE OF DEMOCRACY' 

Time was, in the history of nations, when one individual was 
set over against another as of more worth, as being more noble, 
and hence more powerful. It was not a question of attaining 
this greater nobility or worthiness but merely a question of 
being born with a so-called finer and better strain of blood in 
one's veins. 

But in a democracy this cannot be. The question which 
every man must answer in a republic is not, "Who was your 
father?" but is rather "What can you do? Will you do it?" No 
longer can a man live on the deeds of his ancestors. To have 
had good, and true ancestors, as well, is a mighty asset; but 
to be good, and true, and noble, one's own self without regard 
to one's forefathers, is of infinitely greater value in a democracy. 

It cannot, of course, be disputed that in reality we are not 
all born with equal capacities and endowments. But the ancestry 
alone cannot determine what we may become. As Will Carleton 
has put it — "Some men are born for great things, and some are 
born for small ; with some it is not recorded why they were born 
at all." There may be an aristocracy and a middle class ; there 
may be a noble and a peasant; but aristocracy and nobility find 
their places no less in the lowly cabin and squalid tenement, than 
in the stately mansion or palatial hall. 

How may a democracy develop and preserve such great fig- 
ures in her national life? How can the spirit of democracy, of 
equality, of justice for all be preserved? How shall just laws 
be framed, interpreted and enforced if the rank and file, the 
rabble, the "hoi polloi," are to be allowed a voice in government? 
How shall democracy survive, what shall be her reliance? 

Those great and fundamental principles upon which democ- 
racy and the republican form of government rest are in them- 

* By L. A. Williams. Educational Monthly. 2:12-17. January, 1916. 



14 SELECTED ARTICLES 

selves supported by a principle more fundamental than they. 
Justice, equality, freedom, depend for their perpetuation upon 
intelligence and knowledge. The ignorant man is not a just man, 
he cannot make nor can he enforce or interpret laws of justice. 
The illiterate and unlearned man knows no freedom but license, 
no equality except that brought about through brute strength. 
For the securing of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to 
her citizens the various states of these United States have in- 
augurated and perpetuated a system of free public schools. In 
their wisdom, the founders of our nation saw the necessity for a 
liberal dispensation of learning among the people at large. With- 
out it they knew democracy could not live — they knew that justice 
and freedom would perish from among us. 

Said Jefferson in a letter to the Marquis de LaFayette, "Ig- 
norance and bigotry, like other inanities are incapable of govern- 
ment." In his "Bill for the Better Diffusion of Knowledge" he 
says, "The public happiness demands that a people who wish to 
enjoy the blessings of good government should be possessed of a 
considerable amount of knowledge." Thus could the descendant 
of a long line of noble ancestry see the desirability — even more 
— the necessity, for intelligence and knowledge as a basis for the 
continuance of a democracy. The leadership of a few is not 
enough. There must be the intelligent and understanding co- 
operation of all or the Ship of State must fail of safe refuge 
and go down amidst mutiny. 

Experience has proven the wisdom of an intelligent citizen- 
ship in a democracy. 

But it all has a deeper and more vital significance. What is 
the source of these laws? Whence have these legislators come? 
Are they all sons of aristocratic and noble lines of ancestry? 
From mountain cabin and fisherman's hut, from the home of the 
farmer and the hut of the lumberman, have they come no less 
than from the desk of the business man, the office of the lawyer 
or the library of the man of leisure. Who really have made the 
laws? Who really do the interpreting and enforcing? It is not 
the legislator, judge and police. It is the people back on the 
land, in the office, beside the loom, upon the mountain and down 
in the valley. These others are but delegates who are carrying 
out the will of the people; the people make the laws, enforce 
them and interpret them. Such is the position of the populace 
in a democracy. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 13 

What then does it mean? Who should be the intelligent 
ones? Who should be educated? There can be but one answer — 
the common, every-day man of the state. It is with him that the 
demands for new legislation must originate and it is he who 
must and will insist on his demands being executed. The laws 
are made by and exist for the man at home, and upon him rests 
the responsibility and duty of providing for wise and efficient 
legislation. The ignorance of the voter who sends the legislator 
to the capitol blocks the way to intelligent laws and statutes. 

It is not enough to train and develop a few great leaders. 
To be sure, leaders must be trained and developed, we must 
have great souls to go before and choose the way. But does 
such a truth preclude the necessity for an intelligent following? 
Surely not in a democracy. What a travesty upon the quality 
of our leaders to think they would prefer an ignorant, illiterate, 
babbling, unthinking crowd of followers to an army of educa- 
cated, trained, thoughtful, intelligent citizens. It is an insult to 
our leaders to place them at the head of anything other than the 
very best trained minds and intellects of our state. We must 
biiild up an educated race of citizens who shall wisely and justly 
carry on the great work of building up a magnificent and power- 
ful commonwealth which shall be the glory of her citizens and 
the pride of the nation, that the fathers who have gone and left 
us the inheritance need not be ashamed of the use to which we 
are putting their heritage. 

How can it be done? The answer is simple. By the free pub- 
lic school. All about us are the boys and girls of today, the 
men and women of tomorrow. Here is the material put to our 
hands for the moulding. They are like to the potter's vessel, we 
may shape them as we will. Here we have the citizens of the 
next generation, whose making is in our hands. What are we 
doing for them? Think what a wonderful opportunity is put 
before us. To us is given the privilege of formulating the 
ideals, the principles to which our state, our nation, shall be 
committed in this next generation. We hold in our hands the 
possibilities of the next few years for our people. As we make 
these oncoming citizens intelligent, honest, upright, far-seeing, 
clear-thinking — to the degree will our state, our nation, be able 
to take its place among the peoples of the world as the exponent 
of true democracy, freedom, right and justice. 

So you see it is more than a privilege, larger than oppor- 



14 SELECTED ARTICLES 

tunity. There is a duty, a responsibility that goes with our 
opportunity. The problems of government are being greatly 
complicated as our nation takes on size. In the early days our 
manner of life was simple, our problems of government were 
few. Now we are a world power, we have a place among the 
peoples of the earth. Our internal organization is increasing in 
complexity and intricacy as we evolve our industries, build iip 
our cities, exploit our lands and take into our midst the nations 
of the earth. We are reaching out our hands over the world and 
gathering in the peoples of all lands, offering to them a place of 
growth and development. In vast hordes they are coming to us 
daily and we must remake, remold and refashion their social, 
political, economic, religious, domestic ideals. Such is the burden 
which is being laid upon us and which we shall pass on to these 
boys and girls of today. 

To handle wisely and well, with justice and righteousness, 
these immense problems we must build upon a wise and intel- 
ligent body of citizens who know the right and fearlessly go 
about doing it. To place the handling of these great problems 
of government in the hands of ignorant citizens would be noth- 
ing short of a calamity. A burden is laid upon us to provide 
learning and education for all the children of this generation 
that they may be in a position to handle the problems of govern- 
ment which are so rapidly increasing in complexity. It will not 
be enough that we supply an education to the few but we must 
give to all an equal and even share of an education. The great 
questions of the next decade will come before the leaders but 
it will be the opinion, attitude and will of their constituents which 
will be the deciding factor in the settlement of these questions. 

The founders of our nation builded better than they knew. 
Deep and secure they placed the great fundamental laws and 
principles of democracy. Into the hands of the people at large 
they placed the power to act. Then to perpetuate a surety of 
justice and freedom they placed in the hands of the individual 
states the duty of educating and training the citizenry. They 
solved the problems they had to face and then paved the way by 
which the newer, larger and more far-reaching questions might 
be solved by committing us as a nation to the principles of free 
education for all the people. When the deeds and virtues of this 
generation are held up before the future generations, shall they 
too see how carefully, wisely, surely, we have provided a way, 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION iS 

a means, by which the great problems they are to encounter 
shall be met? Are we sensible of the duty we have? Are we 
performing that duty to the best of our ability? Are we making 
our boys and girls intelligent? 

The implication of all this is not to provide a college or 
university education of all the boys and girls of the state. 
Rather it implies the furnishing of a very different sort of an 
education. The thought which has been back of all this discus- 
sion of the need of education as the bulwark of democracy is of 
furnishing a training along intellectual lines which will be closely 
adapted to the needs of the children who can go to school no 
more than up to the age of fifteen or sixteen. We must reshape 
our ideals as to the type of education we are to furnish our 
children. We must find some way of providing a system of 
intellectual training which shall have an appeal to the boys and 
girls and keep them eager for new knowledge and receptive to 
new truths. 

This new education must set up several new lines of effort. 
In the first place we must provide a longer school year. As it 
is now a boy beginning school at 6 or 7 and continuing to 15 or 
16, if he attends all the time schools are in session every year 
according to law, gets a little over 4^ years of school life (54 
mo.) and in many places not even that much. Consider what , 
that means. We are providing 4^/2 years of education for the 
men, who, 10 years from now, will be making our laws, handling 
our immigrants, settling our international relationships and con- 
trolling the destiny of our nation. It is not enough — the founda- 
tions of learning need to be laid deeper and broader. We need, 
we must have, a longer school year and more stringent laws as 
to attendance. 

In the second place we must make over our courses of study. 
We must eliminate the fads and frills and get back to funda- 
mentals. By this I mean get really back to the fundamental 
subjects which the human race studied in its very earliest glim- 
merings of knowledge and reasoning. Man first learned how 
to get his living from the soil and the forest, he first learned how y 
to live well. Then when he had provided for the means of 
sustenance, and had laid by a surplus, he found it necessary and 
pleasant to indulge in reading and writing. To facilitate com- 
munication between himself and his fellows he invented a lan- 
guage and a means of preserving his thought by writing it down. 



i6 SELECTED ARTICLES 

But reading and writing were fads — frills — of education ; the 
real fundamental education was hunting, farming, housekeeping, 
the making of clothes and preparing of food. 

We must first of all provide a decent and comfortable living 
for our children and since we are an agricultural people, getting 
our living from the soil, we must teach our boys how to get a 
good, not only a meagre living from the soil and we must teach 
our girls how to help their future husbands by keeping the home 
clean and by providing sufiicient and nutritious food. If neces- 
sary we must omit some of our so-called "liberal studies" and 
put in subjects which shall touch their lives at vital points. We 
must get back to fundamentals in our education. At 12 years 
of age boys and girls are just coming to their inheritance. They 
are entering that period of life when they are neither children 
nor adults, when they are putting away childish things and 
taking on the things of mature life. Especially is this true of 
the girl who is then for a few years actually and literally building 
the nest in which future citizens shall be born. The long hours, 
the severe strain of standing, the necessity for working when 
wholly unfit, all are inevitably tending to weaken and to break 
down the mother of generations yc* unborn. We are sacrificing 
every year our boys and girls to the god of money. We are 
thoughtlessly neglecting and ruthlessly wasting human life. Until 
we can find some way to keep our children out of mills and fac- 
tories until they are 16 or 18 years old we shall go on cutting 
away the very foundations on which our state, our nation, is 
founded. If for no other reason than a purely political one we 
must protect, and we must compel others to protect, the lives and 
health of our boys and girls up to 16 or 18 years of age. 

Finally there is this fourth thing. We need to have more 
regard for human life. At the present time school laws permit 
children 12 years old to leave the out-of-doors, the fresh air 
and sunshine, the elevating and ennobling influence of the school 
and to enter the close, over-heated, gloomy, unsanitary mill and 
factory. 

What then is the burden of my message? I put it in the form 
of a plea. In order to conserve our national life, in order to 
protect our national honor, in order to preserve to posterity the 
principles of democratic and representative government, I beg 
you, give to the public school officials your heartiest support 
and urge upon them the necessity for a longer school year, a 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 17 

vocational course of study, better trained teachers, and a more 
strigent compulsory school law. If you will do this, the few 
short steps we have taken so far in this 20th century shall be 
lengthened into great strides of progress ; succeeding generations 
shall call you blessed ; and your own life shall be sweeter, nobler, 
more complete. 

THE PROGRESSIVE SCHOOL: ITS RELA- 
TION TO COMMUNITY INDUSTRIAL 
LIFE' 

The school that is not directly and helpfully related to the 
occupational life out of which it springs and by which it is sup- 
ported is not progressive. It is unhinged and out of joint. It is 
ancient, musty and fusty; befogged, bewildered and belated. 
Why should a community receive a stone when it asks bread of 
its school? 

Occupation and bread mean business and life; they signify 
making a living, living a life, and saving a soul. They concern 
the human and the divine necessities and possibilities of our chil- 
dren; the matter of their bodies and the fire-mist of their 
souls — the bread, kingdoms, stars, and sky that Emerson sings. 
So much, to indicate that I do not have in mind a crass material- 
ism and nothing more when I recognize the imperious, inescap- 
able trinity of food, clothing and shelter as a primary problem 
for the schools to consider. 

In ways more or less successful, in this large sense, various 
schools are relating themselves to the industrial life of their 
communities — the farm-life schools in North Carolina, the agri- 
cultural high schools of the various states, the Page county 
schools in Iowa, the folkschulen of Denmark, the schools of 
Ontario, the John Swaney school in Illinois and similar schools 
in other states, the school of Fitchburg and Gary; the college 
of the City of New York, the universities of Cincinnati and 
Pittsburg, the state universities of Wisconsin, Texas and North 
Carolina. This, for a brief list. There are many others that de- 
serve mention. The bulletins of the Federal Bureau of Educa- 
tion acquaint you with them fully. 

^ By E. C. Branson, Rural Economics and Sociology, University of 
North Carolina. Educational Monthly. 2:18-20. January, 19 16. 



i8 SELECTED ARTICLES 

But when listed at length, such schools are few when com- 
pared with the countless schools of all sorts that are drifting 
along undisturbed by the modern demand that schools be efficient 
agencies of social adjustment and uplift. Their courses are still 
formal, abstract, and academic. They still think that the further 
away a thing is in time and space, the better worth studying it 
is. They are serenely unconcerned about the near, the here, and 
the now. 

Second. There is a nearby world of things to be explored; 
and the knowledge gained quickens and makes alive. There is 
a nearby world of opportunities and possibilities, puzzles and 
problems that challenge action, constructive and curative. It is 
the home-community, the home-county, the mother-state. The 
student who knows his home community thoroughly will inter- 
pret New York sanely by and by — or the Greece and Rome of 
glory and grandeur. 

Community studies concern local geography and history. 
They direct attention to origins, racial strains, noteworthy events 
and achievements, historic localities and memorials; to libraries, 
schools, churches, charities, and other organizations and agencies 
of social uplift; to community building leaders and their con- 
tributions to the material and spiritual wealth of the community. 

But also they concern community resources and their develop- 
ment or neglect ; populations, occupations and industries ; eco- 
nomic classes and conditions ; the factors in the production, re- 
tention of community wealth, surplus wealth and its relation to 
the self-sustaining, self-protecting, self-elevating abilities of the 
community; market and credit conditions; organization and co- 
operation, civic, social, and commercial ; the facilities for commu- 
nication and transportation; public health and sanitation; recrea- 
tion and amusements ; school, church and Sunday school con- 
ditions and problems. 

Here are the forces, agencies and institutions that are cre- 
ating opportunities or obstacles ; that are making or marrmg com- 
munity destinies. And here are direct homespun studies that 
train for effective citizenship and generous social service. 

They are large subjects and they need simplification for im- 
mature minds. It is our task at the University and yours in the 
grammar schools. 

In addition to the direct study of local conditions and needs 
there must be the vocational activities that will react beneficially 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 19 

upon the social life out of which the pupils come and back into 
which they will return. An expert study of occupational sur- 
roundings will determine just what such school activities ought 
to be. Such a study saved Richmond some $200,000 a few years 
ago. The Gary plan suits Gary. The Fitchburg plan suits 
Fitchburg. Only the Raleigh plan will suit Raleigh, and only 
the Greensboro plan will suit Greensboro. 

In the French schools we found courses in housewifery, 
drawing, light, shade, and color everywhere; but in the gold- 
smiths' district of Paris we found the tool work and decorative 
design concentrated upon jewelry and gold and silver wares; in 
the millinery district, the vocational emphasis was laid upon 
artificial flowers and hat designs — confections, they called them. 
In the furniture and mantle making quarters we found that the 
vocational activities of the schools were directed to developing 
artistic invention, taste, and skill in these particular trades. 
They were making artists out of artisans, and thereby raising 
the level of the school neighborhood. 

In quite the same way our country schools need to be 
adjusted to country-life surroundings — as they are in Page 
county, Iowa ; but in Alleghany or Catawba or Sampson or Beau- 
fort the problem is individual and unique in each case. Nothing 
can be adopted ; everything can be adapted. The country school 
problem can be solved by the country-minded teacher; the 
teacher whose soul is saturated with country-mindedness, and 
by no other. 

And the solution will not be found in bread-and-butter 
studies alone. The country school must give the country child 
a new outlook upon country life, its meaning, its possibilities of 
satisfaction, and its enjoyments. It must lead him, as the 
Danish schools do, into literature, art, and music, as well as 
teach him the tillage of fields, the care of animals, and the laws 
of markets and credits. 



20 SELECTED ARTICLES 



SECURING EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY^ 



Equality of opportunity can be secured only by proper recog- 
nition of (a) individual differences in native capacities and in 
social environment, (b) the requirements of vocational efficiency 
as well as of (c) general intelligence and executive power. 

Upon first inspection the main proposition, with its several 
corollaries, seemed to be so axiomatic, and the character of an 
existing opinion regarding industrial education indicated in gen- 
eral such unanimity, as to render any effort at demonstration as 
simple and useless as shooting at the classic "barn door." A 
more careful examination of this apparent axiom, and a more 
critical analysis of the implications of contemporary educational 
opinion, revealed a series of problems of more or less difficulty 
and intricacy. Thereupon the whole question changed its cloak 
of simplicity for one of complexity. 

At the first step of our examination and analysis, we are con- 
fronted with sharp distinction between the theory and the prac- 
tice of our system of public education. The land resounds with 
exclamations of loyalty toward a genuinely public education — an 
education for and by and of the people ; yet how few and far 
between are the parents, the teachers, the communities ready 
and willing to make the change of educational creed and to offer 
the financial sacrifice demanded by their seeming loyalty. There 
is, I believe, a fairly reasonable explanation of this chasm be- 
tween words and deeds. 

The American public school rests upon the basis of the per- 
formance of a political and not an economic function. The caba- 
listic symbol of democracy — equality of opportunity — has pos- 
sessed meaning for education only when attached to the political 
life. The history of the whole social movement for democracy, 
which has found its best expression in and thru the public 
school, is the history of a more or less conscious attempt to 
make politically efficient people. The mediocrity of our suc- 
cess in the maintenance, thru education, of the condition of 

1 By Edward C. Elliott. National Education Association. Proceedings, 
1908:159-61. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 21 

equity in political opportunity seems to have hastened the 
employment of the symbol of democracy for the maintenance of 
equity in economic opportunity. And with this has come the 
dim recognition of the probable insufficiency of the whole for- 
mula of equality. The problem of equality of religious oppor- 
tunity in education has been solved by complete elimination ; that 
of equality of political opportunity by a method of superficial in- 
spection ; that of economic opportunity by the fantasy of antici- 
pation. 

In fact, "equality of educational opportunity" bears every 
stamp of academic and philosophic abstraction. It never was, 
nor never will be, an ideal capable of realization. What we 
have, and shall attempt to bring about thru our public school, is 
an equilibrium, a balancing, of educational opportunity. Equality 
is significant of similarity, identity, of reward. An equilibrium 
of opportunity implies that grade of reward commensurate with 
capacities, whether those capacities are of the endowments of 
nature, of the acquisitions of training, or of the fullness of 
family coffers. The maintenance of such an equilibrium of edu- 
cational opportunity will result in giving to industry its rightful 
share of competence, and give to education for vocation its 
rightful share of respectability; neither of which may be said 
to obtain today. 

Viewed largely, four forces may be said to contribute to ttie' 
drafting of individuals into industry and to the selection by 
individuals of a vocation. The social, concerned mostly with 
artificial distinctions of social grade and rank ; the economic, 
dominated alone by material reward ; the personal, guided by 
indistinct individual interests and desires ; and the educational, 
directed by ancient traditions of intellectual discipline. Each 
acts consciously or unconsciously ; with few exceptions uncon- 
sciously, and this unconscious mode has ever been favored by 
formal education. 

The chief argument in support of the main proposition that 
some definite preparation for vocational activity, especially in- 
dustrial, within our scheme of public education, may be derived 
from the necessary improvement of the acknowledged selective 
function of the school. At the present moment, the distinct 
tendency is toward horizontal stratifications of individuals into 
social classes, instead of a vertical selection according to specific 
efficiency. Vocational industrial education for all is no more 



22 SELECTED ARTICLES 

likely to yield larger social results than the traditional, pseudo- 
cultural, static education of the present, unless it becomes con- 
sciously selective, unless it consciously fits the square industrial 
worker into the square industrial hole, the round worker into 
the round hole, the triangular worker into the triangular hole. 
/- All educational reform passes thru four stages — the stage of 
/ stress, the stage of investigation, the stage of propaganda, the 
/ stage of reorganization. Of these, the stage of investigation is 
[ by far the most difficult of passage. What is needed today, be- 
^ fore we can proceed with saneness thru the stage of propaganda 
on to the stage of rational reorganization, is investigation ; facts, 
"Gradgrindian" facts pertaining to industry and to children. 
We need to determine first of all, the extent of the demand tor 
trained workers in specific fields of industry; we need to deter- 
mine the character and quality of the specific interests and capaci- 
ties needed by specific industries. Above all, we need to deter- 
mine the extent actual and potential, of the individual possessions 
Cof these specific interests and capacities. Here opens an entirely 
new field of activity for the study of social needs, and for the 
study of the pupils of the public school. 
^ This study of social needs, this evaluation of industrial con- 
' ditions, can be carried on successfully according to projected 
plans by a comparatively few trained scientific and skilled inves- 
V^^tigators. But the study of the individual vocational intelligence 
and interests, ideals and capacities, motive and necessities of the 
American boy and girl must be carried on, in the largest meas- 
ure, by the school. Yet the school dare not assume the responsi- 
bility for such study, until there is raised up a new generation of 
public-school teachers — especially in the elementary schools — who 
know how to detect, to classify and to direct the potential indus- 
trial powers of the child. Even given such teachers, this goal is 
not possible until we rid ourselves of the factor}^, piece-work 
system of education of our graded school. This of itself is an 
almost sure preventive against knowing very much about any 
individual pupil. The sum total of the superficial observations 
of eight or a dozen teachers, each of whom has an opportunity 
of studying and knowing the child merely thru one-half of a 
year, or at the most, thru a whole year, will not equal one-tenth 
part of the insight that a skilled, observant teacher might obtain, 
did the machinery of the public school permit close contact be- 
tween the teacher and the pupil, thru several years. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 23 

Until we possess reliable data upon which to base a rational 
scheme of reorganization, the public schools cannot hope to be- 
come instruments for "industrial determination;" neither will 
they cease to prevent mis-selection of individuals for their 
proper station of efficiency and happiness. For a rightful selec- 
tion must precede and underlie the maintenance of the educa- 
tional equilibrium of democracy. 



A PHASE OF THE PROBLEM OF UNI- 
VERSAL EDUCATION' 

Rightly or wrongly, for good or for ill, we are committed to 
a policy of universal education, a policy whose wisdom, I be- 
lieve, has passed the stage of discussion among thinking people. 

Now, no system of education, however good in itself, can 
claim to be or hope to become universal if it does not touch and 
benefit all classes of men, and all legitimate branches of their 
activity, both industrial and non-industrial, vocational and non- 
vocational. Indeed, universal education means exactly what it 
says— the education of all sorts of men for all sorts of purposes 
and in all sorts of subjects that can contribute to the efficiency 
of the individual in a professional way or awake and develop 
the best that was born into him as a man and a human being. 

Looked at in this broad v/ay, industrial education does not 
differ logically from any other form of professional training that 
requires a large body of highly specialized knowledge. Nor do 
industrial people, as such, necessarily constitute a class by them- 
selves, but are men like other men, who love and hate, who earn 
and spend, who read and think, and act and vote, and do any 
and all other acts which may be performed by any other citizens. 
Now all of this leads me to maintain the thesis that industrial 
education is not a thing apart but is only a phase, albeit an im- 
portant phase, of our general system of universal education, a 
thesis that is the more plausible when we remember that all men 
need two educations — one that is vocational and one that is not; 
one that will fit them to work and one that will fit them to live. 
When we remember that there is less difFerence between industry 

1 From an article by Eugene Davenport. National Education Associa- 
tion. Proceedings. 1009:277-88. 



24 SELECTED ARTICLES 

and occupation than we once assumed ; when we remember that 
90 per cent of the people follow industrial pursuits and will 
continue to do so; when we remember that all major industries 
like other essential activities must go on in the future as in the 
past, even tho every man in the community were a college grad- 
uate, and when we remember that it is for the public good that 
these major industries be developed and occupied by educated 
men, surely this position is not unreasonable. 

All parties are agreed these days that in order to secure a 
fair degree of efficiency in some way some sort of specialized in- 
struction should be given in industrial pursuits. The old ap- 
prentice system has passed away and the work of instruction for 
industrial efficiency seems to be thrown upon the schools. It is 
a new problem and they appear not to know quite what to do 
with it. It is perfectly clear that industrial education calls for 
new and different courses of instruction from those designed to 
fit for non-industrial pursuits, and the question is whether these 
constitute a part of our public schools duty or whether the 
peculiar educational needs of industry and of industrial people 
may be left to take care of themselves. In discussing indus- 
trial education, as with all other forms of education, it must 
always be remembered that we are dealing with the man as well 
as with the craftsman, and I use the term craftsman in its broad- 
est sense to cover the work of the lawyer as well as that of the 
farmer. 

But no scheme of education is truly universal or can hope to 
become so until it not only touches and uplifts all classes of men 
but also touches and uplifts their industries as well ; for it is not 
expedient that men should desert industry as soon as they are 
educated, but rather that they should remain and apply their edu- 
cation to the development of the industries, that the people may 
be better served and the economic balance of things be not dis- 
turbed by the evolution of an educational system aiming to be- 
come universal. 

But as yet we have no system of secondary education that can 
be called universal and until the matter is settled, and settled 
right at this point, our system is weak at its most important 
level because it is our secondary education that touches our 
people during their formative period and that really reaches the 
masses in such a way as to be truly universal in extent. 

I say that our secondary education is not yet universal. True, 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 25 

the high schools are open to all who have finished the grades, but 
they do not offer to most classes of people that instruction which 
is a preparation for life and which the needs of the time and 
the impulse of the people demand. 

The high schools took their cue originally from the old-time 
academies which were training-schools for classical colleges. 
Since then primary education has become universal because it 
involved nothing but opening the schools to all the people free 
of tuition. The education of the colleges has become, or is 
rapidly becoming, universal because the people demand that the 
benefits of higher education shall not be limited to a few favored 
occupations and those who follow them — all upon the ground that 
such a course would be pernicious because against the public 
welfare. 

The same influences are beginning to work in our high 
schools, which are moving in the wake of the colleges, it seems to 
me, in a way that is wholly commendable, and that needs only to 
be accelerated and not retarded. 

The high schools are schools of the people and in response 
to their demand they have added to the old-time classical 
courses those in modern science, in manual training, in house- 
hold science, and indeed, many are now adding agriculture, 
stenography, telegraphy, bookkeeping, type-setting, and a list of 
vocational courses almost too long to be mentioned, all without 
prejudice to, but vastly to the enrichment of, the old-time courses 
of study. 

So the high schools are rapidly following in the lead of the 
colleges and if matters go on as they are now drifting in some 
of our best schools, it will not be long until, in response to pub- 
lic demand and common-sense, we will have a complete system 
of universal education in the large sense of the term and of all 
grades from the elementary schools upward, in which men and 
women of all kinds and preferences will be able to get that edu- 
cation which will not only fit them for life but fit them to live. 
In the name of progress let this good work go on. ' 

There are but three influences, it seems to me, that can inter- 
fere with the proper evolution of the high schools. They may 
be outlined as follows : 

1. The movement in certain quarters for separate industrial schools — • 
agricultural schools in the country and trade schools in the city — quite in- 



26 SELECTED ARTICLES 

dependent from the high school system which is assumed to be indifferent if 
not antagonistic to industrial life. 

2. The attitude of a few remaining exponents of the old idea that 
schools should teach nothing that by any possibility could be put to any 
manner of use. 

3. The difficulty involved on the part of the high schools in adding 
not only to their educational purpose but to their courses of study, their 
.equipment, and their teaching force, with sufficient rapidity to meet the 
new demands and mold the whole into an educational unity without such 
delay as shall make the claim seem true that after all the high schools have 
no real desire to serve the people in their industrial activities, but will do 
no more than is necessary to half satisfy what they regard as an irrational 
public demand. Thus the high schools are put at disadvantage at this most 
difficult period in their evolution, particularly as teachers are yet to be made 
even while these new ideals are to be fitted into and made a part of our 
permanent educational policies. 

Now these considerations are worth reviewing at the present 
juncture, because what the high schools need is time, and this is 
the element in the case least likely to be afforded. The activity 
of certain educators in favor of separate agricultural schools of 
one kind or another, and what I am bound to call the selfish 
influence of certain commercial interests demanding city trade 
schools to teach that sort of handicraft which will produce skilled 
workmen in the shortest possible space of time and best enable 
us to meet foreign or other competition in manufactured articles 
— this activity and this influence seem ready to sacrifice almost 
anything for immediate results. This American edition of the 
German peasant school idea is most dangerous because a most 
insidious and powerful menace to the right development of the 
American high school, which is or may be the most unique edu- 
cational institution on earth, and which will constitute, if it can 
rightly develop, the key to the advantageous position which 
America ought to occupy both socially, politically, and econonom- 
ically, and which she can occupy if she is far-sighted enough 
at this point and at this time. 

If present tendencies can go on unhampered, it will not be 
long until every community can have its high school which will 
reflect with a fair degree of accuracy its major industries and 
do ,it, too, in the light of the world's knowledge and of the 
world's ideals. Such schools will turn out men and women ready 
to do the world's work and think the world's thoughts as well as 
to dream the world's dreams and share in its ambitions. If we 
combine our energies we can have such schools in America 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 27 

wherein every young man and every young woman can secure an 
education that is at once both useful and cultural, and that, too, 
within driving distance of the father's door. If we unite our 
educational energies we can do this but we cannot do it in sep- 
arate schools. 

We can combine the vocational and the non-vocational in our 
high schools if we will and each be the better for the other. On 
the contrary, if the arts and crafts and industries are taught in 
separate schools the following results are inevitable : 

1. There will be as many different schools and as many different 
forms of education as there are different forms of industry, with little of 
mutual sympathy and nothing of community of purpose. 

2. The vocational future of the individual will be decided not by 
intelligent choice but by the accident of proximity to one of these schools 
or the exigency of earning power. 

I 3. If industrial education is given only in industrial schools, then the 

high schools will losq forever their hold upon the masses, for go per cent 
of the people are industrial and always will be, and boys will follow occu- 
pational instruction. This will reduce the high schools to the teaching of 
the girls and the work of preparing for college and they will lose forever 
the influence upon American life which they might exert by molding the 
ideals of the masses as they instruct them in their industries. 

4. The separate industrial schools will always be inferior to what 
the high schools might be, for, being established to serve special ends, they 
will naturally attain those ends by the most direct means possible; indeed 
they must be almost exclusively technical or else resort to an amount of 
duplication and expense that would hardly be tolerated by their patrons. 

5. The products of these schools would be successful from the nar- 
rowest business standpoint; but unsuccessful from the larger point of 
view; they would be trained rather than educated. 

6. Such schools would force boys to choose their calling or indeed 
have it chosen for them at a very early age, and without much opportunity 
for an intelligent choice. Once chosen, however, the decision would be 
final. The results, however, would greatly satisfy business demands which 
are ever ready to sacrifice the man to his efficiency. 

7. If members of the several vocations are to be educated separately 
the education will not only be hopelessly narrow and needlessly expensive 
Jbut, what is even worse, our people will be educated in groups separately, 
without knowledge of or sympathy for each other, producing a stratification 
of our people that is not only detrimental to society but dangerous if not 
ffatal to democratic institutions. Such schools will, however, draw the 
masses and have all the surface indications of success. 

So, all things considered, I most earnestly advocate the tak- 
ing over of our industrial education in all its forms into the 
existing system of secondary schools, seeing to it that one- 
fourth the time of every pupil is devoted to something voca- 



28 SELECTED ARTICLES 

tional, something industrial, if you please, and no industry is too 
common for this purpose. It is the common things of life that 
are fundamental and it is thru them that we teach life itself. 

It is not necessary to bring all occupations and industries 
into our schools ; some are not well adapted to our academic con- 
ditions, but it is necessary that we bring in a goodly variety of 
what may be called the major activities, industrial and non-in- 
dustrial, in order that life shall be taught in a variety of its 
forms and that the boy shall have a reasonable chance for choice. 

Trade schools, would you have them? By all means, but I 
would have them as a part of the secondary school system. 
Agricultural schools? Yes, but as departments of the high 
school. Cooking schools? Yes, and more: I would have schools 
of household affairs, but I would have them as integral parts of 
the high school. Schools of stenography and typewriting? Yes, 
but I would not disconnect them from the high school any more 
than I would cut off from womankind the girl who needs per- 
haps for a time, perhaps always, to earn her own money. 

In brief, there is no class of occupation followed by large 
masses of people that I would not bring into the high school 
and teach as fully as circumstances would permit, and I would 
compel every student to devote not less than one-fourth and not 
more than one-half of his time to these occupational lines. 

I have said that a second influence operating to restrain the 
high schools from moving in this matter as fast as conditions 
require is the remnant of an old academic belief that the purpose 
of schools is to "make men," whatever that may be, as distinct 
from making men ready for life. These are they would teach 
nothing that could by any means be put to any sort of use. With 
them education is a luxury, not a necessity, a kind of holy thing 
that evaporates or in some way loses its essence when put to 
common uses or into the hands of the masses of men. 

These be they who are always speaking of industrial educa- 
tion as "training," using a term whose meaning is understood 
from its frequent application to horses and dogs. 

Now to such let me say that the thing which all men every- 
where now demand, whatever their vocation or means of liveli- 
hood, is not training merely but education, and they mean by that 
such contact and intimacy with the world's stock of knowledge 
as shall first of all develop the industry, and second, but not 
secondarily, develop also the man. 

Thinking men now know that, education or no education, 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 29 

culture or no culture, whatever the grade of civilization we may 
evolve, certain fundamental industries must still go on. More- 
over, they know that if these fundamental industries are to be 
well conducted and our natural resources developed, then these 
activities must be in the hands of capable men; yes, of educated 
men, for industry, like every other activity of man, is capable 
of development by means of orderly knowledge and trained 
minds. 

They know, too, these thinking people, that men of capacity 
cannot be found to develop these fundamentals except they may 
also themselves partake of the blessings of life and the full 
fruits of our civilization. They know that the days of the 
hewers of wood and the drawers of water, as such — condemned 
to a life of drudgery — are over on this earth wherever civiliza- 
tion exists, and that education, like religion, must somewhat 
rapidly readjust itself to new conditions and prepare to help the 
common average man to lead a life that is both useful to the 
community and a satisfaction to himself. 

The aristocracy of education, like the aristocracy of religion, 
whereby a few were saved at the expense of the many, is over, 
and education, like religion, must help the common man to meet 
and solve the common issues of life better than they have ever 
been met and solved before — hence industrial education ; hence 
vocational education ; hence universal education. 

These good people who shy at the term industrial education 
are remnants of a past condition when educators and others 
entertained that old-time and curious conception of industry, 
whereby industrial people were assumed to be uneducated and 
were by common consent assigned a social position of natural 
inferiority, as if a farmer or a mechanic, for example, acquired 
by his daily life a kind of toxic poison that not only destroyed 
his better faculties but was likely to exude and soil or injure 
others. 

Let me call the attention of these good people to the fact 
that whatever their social status the industrial people hold the 
balance of power politically and socially, for they constitute 90 
per cent of the population, and that for all practical purposes 
and in the last analysis they are the people, and their education, 
whatever it is to be, will really constitute our system. 

The colleges learned long ago that to meet modern needs 
they must afford every man two educations : one intensely tech- 
nical to meet his business needs and make him an efficient mem- 



30 SELECTED ARTICLES 

ber of society but which would tend to narrow him as a man ; 
the other non-vocational, which has no money-making power, 
but whose effect is to liberalize and broaden the man by attract- 
ing his interests and widening his knowledge outside the field 
wherein he gains his livelihood. 

Now the high schools must learn the same lesson and the 
sooner they do so the better for all interests. Therefore these 
high schools that are introducing the industrial are developing 
in the right lines. The high schools are not preparatory schools 
for college. They are pre-eminently the schools wherein the 
people are fitted for life. Where one man is educated in college, 
twenty will get all their preparation in high schools. The high 
school, therefore, is the place wherein the boy shall find himself 
to the end that if he goes to college he will have, upon matricu- 
lation, exceedingly clear ideas about what he intends to do, and 
if he does not he can go out from the high school at once and 
take some useful part in the world's work. The large number 
of high school men, even graduates, who have no plans and, 
more than all, no fitness, preparation or inclination for any sort 
of useful activity, is a pathetic and a dangerous fact — pathetic 
because so much good material has been wasted ; dangerous be- 
cause the high schools must either change their ideals and intro- 
duce the industrial freely, or the industrial masses will find 
other schools of their own that will meet their needs as they 
have been met on college levels but as they have not yet been 
met in secondary grades where the masses go. 

Now the colleges have learned that it is not necessary to ab- 
sorb all the time of the student in order to turn out an efficient 
man vocationally. Much less is it necessary in secondary 
schools. On college levels, from one-half to two-thirds of the 
students time suffices for the vocational, and when we learn 
better how to teach, results can doubtless be attained with still 
less, leaving a generous amount of time for the pursuit of the 
non-vocational and therefore of liberalizing courses, for the 
effect of a course of study, whether narrowing or broadening, 
depends less upon the subject matter than upon the attitude of 
the student and the purpose for which he takes the course. 
Chemistry is a professional study to the prospective farmer, 
while to the journalist or the lawyer it is non-professional and 
liberal. 

If we honestly take into our high schools, as we have Laken 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 31 

into our universities, all the major activities, splitting no hairs as 
between the industrial and the professional, for no man can 
define the difference, so imperceptibly do they shade the one into 
the other — if we will take them all into the high school as we 
have already taken them into the universities, and carry them 
along together, the vocational and the non-vocational side by 
side, day after day, from first to last, so the boy is never free 
from either, then will all our educational necessities be met and 
we will have met a goodly number of substantial achievements, 
prominent among which I would mention the following : 

1. One-fourth of the time of the boy or girl could be devoted to 
vocational work in the classroom or laboratory thruout the course. 

2. This would turn out every boy with some skill in, some branch of 
the world's work, and do away with that large and growing number of 
young high school graduates who are fitted for nothing and are good for 
nothing in particular. 

3. It would attract the attention of the boy to self-supporting activity 
before he loses his natural ambition by too much schooling with no initia- 
tive. 

4. It would turn out girls with some training in household affairs, and 
those who desired it in such occupations as women follow for self-support. 

5. It would vastly uplift most occupations and all of the more ordi- 
nary industries by bringing into their practice the benefit of trained minds 
and methods. 

6. It can do all this and still leave three-fourths of the time for the 
acquisition of those non-vocational lines of knowledge which all men and 
women need, because they are human beings getting ready to live in a most 
interesting world. 

7. In this way, we should have a single system of education under a 
single management, but giving to all young men and women really two 
educations: one that is vocational, fitting them to be self-supporting and 
useful, the other non-vocational and looking to their own development. 

Expensive? No more so than to have it done in separate 
schools, surely. It will be done somehow, and the only question 
now is, will the high schools really rise to their opportunity and 
secure thru themselves a real system of universal education, or 
are they to lose their chance and we to have in the end not a real 
but only a patchwork imitation of a system of universal educa- 
tion? 

I am perfectly well aware that all this will be held by some 
as a lowering of standards and a degrading of education by 
commercializing it. Against this conclusion I protest most em- 
phatically. Does it degrade a thing to use it? Does it degrade 
religion to uplift the fallen or to sustain the masses of men from 



32 SELECTED ARTICLES 

falling? Is education a luxury to be restricted to a few favored 
fortunates or is it a power to uplift and sustain and develop all 
men? 

Are you afraid to educate the ditch-digger? Is the educa- 
tion of the gentleman too good for him? Are the facts of his- 
tory too profound or the satisfaction of knowledge too precious 
to be common property of man? Does it make my satisfaction 
less when it makes his more, or are you afraid that he will 
climb out of the ditch if he is enlightened? There is no danger 
of that. I have dug ditch and laid tile every month of the year 
and that since I was a college graduate, and I am ready to do it 
again. I am ready to do my share of the world's work : yes, 
of the world's dirty work. It was Colonel Waring who cleaned 
up New York City. It was the educated engineer who made 
a sanitary Cuba. The educated man does anything that is needed 
to be done to get results. It is the uneducated or the badly edu- 
cated who fails to comprehend the eternal balance of things. 

I desire to call attention to one more phase of our problem, 
to what may be called our leisure asset. There are two leisure 
classes, one few and unimportant, the other large and important. 
The first consists of the idle rich who by accident were born 
after their fathers, and who intend to live a parasitic existence, 
paying for their needs with other people's money. They are 
altogether useless. It matters little how they are educated and 
the sooner they die off the better for the world. They do not 
think : they do not act : they only vegetate and glitter. The 
wealthy who do not belong to this class are too busy for leisure. 

The other leisure class is the great industrial mass, who, 
after all, own and control about all the useful leisure in the 
world. The minister has no leisure. The teacher has no leis- 
ure. The lawyer, the leader everywhere, has no leisure. What 
he does he does under pressure and because he must. 

But the farmer, the craftsman, the industrialist generally, 
labors only in the daylight hours and for a portion of his time. 
What he does with the balance of his waking energies is of the 
utmost concern. Here is the racial asset, both social and psychi- 
cal ; both economic and political. 

If this great mass of men, constituting all but the degener- 
ates, can be properly educated, the racial asset of their leisure 
moments will in the end be tremendous. It is this mass, and 
what it thinks and does in its leisure hours either blindly or 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 33 

intelligently, that will ultimately fix the trend o£ our development 
and the limits of our achievements. It is better that they be 
educated broadly. 

Moreover, it is out of this mass that leaders arise, and if their 
education be sound, then will our leaders be wise and safe. You 
cannot maintain any more an educated aristocracy. There will 
be but one aristocracy and that will be the aristocracy of personal 
achievement, and if we do not want the world entirely commer- 
cialized we must so merge our industrial education into our gen- 
eral system as to have in the end not a mass of separate schools 
with distracting aims and purposes, but a single system of edu- 
cation catering to all classes and all interests. It is the only 
influence that will preserve a homogeneous people. 

In thus amalgamating the vocational and the non-vocational, 
I would like to say a word for what might be called the parallel 
system as distinct from the stratified. That is, I would have a 
boy from his first day in the high school to his last have to do 
with both the vocational and the non-vocational. I would have 
him every day take stock of things vocational in terms of world 
values. I would have him devote a full fourth of his time to 

what will bring him earning power, to be used for that purpose 
if he needs it, and to give him an independent spirit if he does 
not need it. Every man is a better man if he feels the power to 
earn his way, whether he needs to do it or not. 

Do you say that this will so cut into his time as to prevent his 
getting an all-round education? Then I will say that he will 
never get an all-round, education any way: that the most he 
knows at forty will be learned out of school and that the busi- 
ness of the school is to give him a good start. 

I beg, too, for a reform in the idea that a course is framed 
mainly for the one who graduates. If the vocational and the 
non-vocational are properly paralleled the course is good from 
whatever point it is left, and whenever abandoned it has taught 
the student the proper balance between industry and life, be- 
tween the means and the ends of life. 

All this will take time because it means to some extent the 
readjustment of ideals, the addition of new courses of study 
and of new materials and methods of instruction. It means the 
making of a new class of teachers who must largely train them- 
selves by a generation of experience. It means the making of a 
more complicated system of instruction than has ever been 



3< 



34 SELECTED ARTICLES 

undertaken — a system as complicated as American democratic 
life. 

But it is worth the while, for nothing better is possible. It 
is easier, of course, to short-circuit the matter by assenting to 
the separation of industry and education, but no race need hope 
for supremacy or for the evolution of its best till it combines 
industry and education, which belong together in the schools as 
they do now and always must in life. 

So I say to the high schools — Do not wait for approved 
courses of study, nor for the production of skilled teachers. Go 
ahead and do the best you can. An honest effort is half the 
battle, and it is worth more than it ever will be again. Do not 
hesitate till methods are marked out. If you do that, you and 
the cause are lost, for the separate industrial school will surely 
come. We know the ideal — an educated American in all the ac- 
tivities of life. Let us go ahead and produce him and mend our 
methods later on. 

Education is no longer a luxury. It has become a necessity 
for the doing of the world's work. It is no longer for the edifi- 
cation of the few; it is for the satisfaction of the many. And 
whether we regard it as industrial or non-industrial ; as contri- 
buting to the efficiency of men or to their elevation in civilized 
society ; however this or any other educational problem is re- 
garded they are all but phases of our general and stupendous 
problem of universal education, in the working-out of which 
there are as yet no models for the American secondary school. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION FOR GIRLS' 

I believe the solution of every girl's problem is that, just like 
her brother, she should prepare for some useful work. Like 
the boy when prepared she should go out and look for a job. 
Her choice of work is what she likes and what she is trained 
for. Men no longer own all the jobs. We know now that all 
work is human ; that no work belongs to a man because he is 
a man nor to a woman because she is a woman. Work belongs 
to the man or woman who can do it best, and the joy of reward 
belongs to that man or woman. 

* From "Worth of a girl," by Bertha Pratt King. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 35 

If our girls are not trained to the right use of their gifts and 
their powers then our girls will suffer. That a girl should have 
an intellectual life, that she should have an interesting mind, 
that she should have her own career if she wants it, that a 
girl should be preparing for whatever" work in life she desires — 
this is recognizing the worth of a girl. She has a right to be 
a human being of large knowledge, great feeling and wide ex- 
perience, capable of the tremendous work of a woman and of a 
human being. The greatest wrong that can be done to girls 
is for fathers and mothers to deny them these fundamental 
human rights and to nurse in them romantic ideals of grandly 
ornamented idleness. 

In these trying years when girls are realizing the necessity 
of such work we should give them every guidance and advice. 
Let us do for them what we would do for our boys. Let us 
teach them to acquire a serious work, to stay by it, to succeed 
in it. We women of today did not have to face these problems 
in our girlhood, but so speedily has the freedom of women come 
upon us that our own girls stand on the borderline of a most 
confused future. 



THE ABSTRACT-MINDED AND THE 
MOTOR-MINDED CHILD' 

The different types of children in our school system may be 
illustrated by a straight line, one end of which might be called 
the motor-minded and the other abstract-minded. The motor- 
minded or hand-minded child is one with a craving for achieve- 
ment, to do and not to study. He has a natural dislike for books 
and finds it possible to understand abstract principles only by 
having an actual experience with them. The abstract-minded 
or book-minded child is one who has no difficulty in committing 
to memory abstract principles and who likes to study books. Be- 
tween these two limits are shades of different types. The aver- 
age child is motor-minded rather than abstract-minded. 

It is a well-known fact that during the first seven or eight 
years of life the child is interested in objects — material things. 
He is educated by objective teaching. Because the memory 
is formed during this period the average teacher makes a great 

* From "Education of the Ne'er-do-well." p. 15-17. By L. H. Dooley. 



36 SELECTED ARTICLES 

mistake in eliminating the objective teaching which is so prom- 
inent in the first three grades. He assumes that the average 
child, without having any previous experience or contact with 
the experience which lie back of them, has a large power to 
grasp ideas, principles or abstractions given by the teacher or 
read out of the text-book. 

While a very few children of this age have the power of 
committing to memory information without experience, the 
average boy or girl is concrete-minded rather than abstract- 
minded. He comes into possession or grasps new ideas only by 
experience with (actual) concrete situations in which he sees 
them illustrated and applied. The child whose experience con- 
forms to an actual commercial experience will hold the princi- 
ples or ideas involved better and will be able to apply them in 
working situations more effectively. 

FEDERAL AID FOR VOCATIONAL 
EDUCATION' 

In theory every man should educate his own children ; in 
practice he sometimes will not and sometimes can not. Schools 
are a necessity and compulsory attendance inevitable if we are 
to have an educated people. In theory a community should 
establish and maintain its own school ; in practice many com- 
munities will not do this unless they are compelled by law and 
then they will maintain schools only at the legal minimum. The 
result of this is that many children as worthy as many others 
and afterwards to be citizens with them are curtailed in their 
educational privileges and through no fault of their own. The 
state, therefore, as a larger and more powerful unit, should 
intervene and compel the community, assisting it if necessary, 
to maintain a school comparable with those of the richer com- 
munities. For us to go on with this unequal development will 
result in an extremely uneven development over the country as 
a whole, giving the people of the various sections widely dis- 
similar ideals. It is imperative that these differences be reduced 
to a minimum, and for this reason federal aid for vocation is 
more than justified. 

It is, however, in every way inadvisable that there should be 

1 From statement by Eugene Davenport to the Commission on National 
aid to vocational education. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 37 

a federal policy regarding education, because in the long run 
with some help and some suggestions the communities will work 
out their own salvation better than it can be worked out for 
them. Congress was wise in 1862 and since in so endowing the 
agricultural and mechanic arts in the various states as to bring 
about at least one college in every commonwealth where these 
two great subjects should be taught in such a way as to insure- 
the development of these great fundamental industries in the 
hands of educated men. To these household science has been 
added, and commerce doubtless should be; included. 

The federal government has been wise up to date in content- 
ing itself with devoting public money to the general cause of 
education in the various states, leaving to them the question as 
to what should be taught, how it should be taught, and the par- 
ticular machinery for giving instruction. Perhaps some addi- 
tional administrative responsibility should have been exercised 
over the earlier funds, but as a whole the results of the land 
grant and its supplementary acts have been eminently successful, 
not only in beginning the work of education along certain voca- 
tional lines, but in stimulating the states to add to the funds for 
the same purpose many times as much as they have received 
from the federal sources. 

There remains, in my opinion, but one thing more for the 
federal government to do for vocational education, namely, to 
endow secondary education in agriculture, mechanic arts, house- 
hold science, commerce, and perhaps one or two other lines, on 
precisely the same plan that it has endowed education in 
mechanic arts and agriculture in the colleges during the last 
century, leaving to the states the question whether they should 
discharge this duty through separate vocational schools or 
whether they should proceed, as I have indicated, by introducing 
as rapidly as possible the element of vocational education into all 
the schools. Conditions differ and ideals differ. Upon matters 
as large as this I believe that the states should be left free to 
act. If they are left unhampered they will determine in good time 
whether the public school system should be to some extent 
vocationalized or whether it should be kept free from vocation 
and other schools developed. 



38 SELECTED ARTICLES 

FEDERAL AID FOR VOCATIONAL 
EDUCATION' 

L It is expedient and desirable that aid be given by the 
National Government for encouragement, promotion, and assist- 
ance of vocational education in the various states in the Union. 

II. Such aid should be given to the states only for carefully 
specified forms and grades of vocational education. 

III. Aid should be given only after the state, either through 
the state as a whole or through local areas, establishes and main- 
tains an approved quality of vocational education in any particu- 
lar direction. 

The contribution of the national government should in no 
case exceed the amount raised by the state and its local areas 
for maintenance. 

IV. National aid should be given to a state only when the 
state has organized a distinctive and responsible body to super- 
vise the expenditure of funds for vocational education. This 
local body may be the state board of education, but its constitu- 
tion, with proper executive officers, should be approved by the 
national government. 

V. National aid should be given in the form of reimburse- 
ment for local expenditures already incurred, the national gov- 
ernment reserving the right to withhold any particular amount 
in the event that the local work for which reimbursement is 
claimed does not appear to meet satisfactory standards. 

VI. The national government should endow some national 
agency with proper authority, powers, and facilities to supervise 
the expenditure of money appropriated by the national govern- 
ment to aid vocational education. This national agency should 
be placed in a position to develop standards of efficiency in 
vocational education, to define the conditions under which any 
particular state should share in the national grant, and in gen- 
eral to insure that national money should be wisely spent. 

VII. The national agency should be placed in a position to 
inspect, to whatever extent may be required, the schools and 
types of education for which reimbursement is sought. 



* Statement by David Snedden, Commissioner Massachusetts Board of 
Education, May s, 19 14. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 39 

FEDERAL AID FOR VOCATIONAL 
EDUCATION' 

The economy and success of any federal plan for aiding vo- 
cational educational in the several states will ultimately depend 
upon proper prevision and adequate provision for a properly 
trained staff of competent teachers of the several vocational 
subjects. Any plan that does not guarantee that the scheme 
of federal-aided vocational education will be under the over- 
sight of such a trained staff is certain to lead to waste and ineffi- 
ciency. 

Practically all of the public enterprises for vocational educa- 
tion are to-day handicapped by the absence of properly trained 
teachers. It is therefore very necessary for the present com- 
mission to consider two essential issues : 

First, the desirability of providing direct aid for the training 
of teachers in the several types of state institutions — normal 
schools, agricultural colleges, and universities. Provisions will 
need to be drawn most carefully so as to avoid duplication of 
effort on the part of these institutions, and any conflict of insti- 
tutional interests ; second, the formation of conditions whereby 
any federal funds designed for the support of vocational edu- 
cation in the states shall be expended only in schools staffed 
with teachers of approved training and competency. The ap- 
proval of such training and competency should be left with some 
responsible federal authority. 



. FEDERAL AID FOR VOCATIONAL 
EDUCATION' 

(i) In presenting this memorandum I do so as the chairman 
of a committee of the separate state universities ; not of the non- 
technical universities, as they have been designated by members 
of the committee, but of those state universities that do not 
have departments of agriculture. There are 20 of these state 

* Statement by Edward C. Elliott, Professor of Education and Director 
of the course for the training of teachers, University of Wisconsin, on be- 
half of _ the conference of the Department of Education in state colleges 
and universities, April 20, 1914. 

^ Statement by Franklin B. Dyer, Superintendent of Public Schools, 
Boston, Mass., April 30, 19 14. 



40 SELECTED ARTICLES 

universities, and, having a real experience in the effects and 
influence of federal legislation on education, they feel strongly 
that legislation by the federal government should be undertaken 
only after the most careful review of all the problems involved. 

(2) The presidents of these state universities believe in vo- 
cational education and the necessity of doing much in that di- 
rection. Direct appropriations from the federal government to 
districts and school bodies would mean little incentive and might 
mean much demoralization because of the inability of any legis- 
lative body to make rules that would apply equally to all parts of 
so varied a country as this. 

(3) The amounts appropriated, while large in the aggregate, 
would have but small influence upon the development of schools. 

The problem of education is essentially a state and local 
problem. There is no reason why one state should be called upon 
to aid another state in the work of education. The place to 
solve vocational education in New York is in New York, and 
the backwardness of the communities in accepting this view does 
not justify calling on the federal government. 

(4) Moreover, the tendency to run to the federal treasury 
for every need, and in the case of financial assistance for any 
movement not otherwise provided for, must be viewed with alarm 
and looked upon as likely in the long run to mean heavy federal 
taxation and a limitation upon the fiscal systems of the individ- 
ual states. Besides, such action opens the door to any and every 
appeal for funds which may be as fully justified in one instance 
as another. 

(5) The advocates of this form of subsidy for vocational 
education will fail to find in European experience any support 
for their contention. In Germany the states, municipalities, 
guilds, and merchant associations work together to develop vo- 
cational education without aid from the imperial government. 
Each state deals with its problem as seems wise and necessary. 
Thus, one-half to two-thirds of the cost of maintenance of such 
schools are provided for by the states, but the buildings are con- 
structed by the municipalities and the balance of the expense 
met by the cities and the merchant and guild associations. The 
proposal to appropriate money from the federal treasury on the 
basis of population makes it a sectional and class legislation 
proposal. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 41 

/. // there is to be federal legislation on vocational legislation, 

what should it be? 

(i) In view of the fact that the economy-of-time problem 
is unsolved in our school system, there is in reality no provision 
for a place for vocational education. In the European systems 
of education the vocational training has a place in the system, 
but with our system of eight grades and four years of high 
schools the vocational training has no opening for real develop- 
ment. 

Here at once is a real difficulty that brings the problem into 
the realm of propaganda and necessitates leadership and direc- 
tion. This the Bureau of Education could bring about, and 
without such reorganization any system of vocational education 
must languish. Appropriations for investigations and encourage- 
ment of real progress in dealing with the problem under the di- 
rection of the Bureau of Education would be most helpful. 
This, however, is a distinctly different proposal from the one 
made to appropriate funds from federal sources for direct aid 
to vocational education enterprises in the different states on the 
basis of population. 

(2) In addition, the utilization of the state departments of 
education under the general supervision of the federal bureau, 
in working out the problem of vocational education, would bring 
each state into touch and at the same time place the work under 
general supervision for purposes of uniformity. Such sugges- 
tions are quite out of line with the proposal that federal appro- 
priations should be made to schools undertaking certain forms 
of vocational training, but they are fundamental in that they 
deal with the basis of a vocational educational system and hold 
the development along essentially national lines. 

III. Conclusion 

(i) It is therefore hoped that the commission appointed by 
the joint resolution of Congress will be willing to see the crude- 
ness of any legislation that merely hands out money to separate 
states to engage in vocational educational enterprises. 

(2) While it is evident that a number of years must pass 
in developing a vocational educational system, real wisdom 
calls for leadership and a constructive program, which is all that 
the federal government should be asked to contribute. 



42 SELECTED ARTICLES 

(3) The result can be brought about through the agency of 
the Bureau of Education in cooperation with the state depart- 
ments of education in the different states, and all the benefit of 
uniformity and incentive to the movement be secured. 

FEDERAL AID FOR VOCATIONAL 
EDUCATION' 

The stimulus afforded by national grants seems to be abso- 
lutely necessary in order to place the importance of vocational 
educational squarely before the country. 

Again, the distribution of these grants upon some uniform 
condition will standardize vocational training as nothing else 
could and prevent waste of money and energy in experimenta- 
tion. 

Further, the value of industrial efficiency is of nation-wide 
importance and not merely local. 

The order in which the different forms of vocational educa- 
tion should be associated is as you have placed it in your list: 
First, agricultural; second, industrial; third, commercial; fourth, 
home economics. I should place the training of teachers ahead 
of all the others, however, or, at least, parallel with the others. 
I am also inclined to think that industrial education is in parallel 
with agricultural education rather than beneath it in importance. 
The education of the city workman should be looked after as 
well as the country workman. 

It would appear to me that the Bureau of Education is the 
proper institute for disseminating information ; at least, it should 
be in one distinct department to prevent confusion. 

I think that grants should not be given as gratuities, but under 
condition of the local authorities bearing part, at least half, of 
the burden and conditions of standardization that would be ap- 
proved by the national government. 

In granting federal aid it seems to me that it would be well to 
begin with a few schools which should be developed as examples 
of what may be done, and then extend aid upon the basis of the 
knowledge gained by these experiments. 

There is no doubt of the propriety of the government desig- 
nating in extreme detail the way in which money shall be ex- 
pended, but I do believe that there should be clearly defined 
restrictions and standards set up. 

* Statement by Frank L. M'Vey, President University of North Dakota, 
Hay 6, 1914, 



INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 



THE SPIRIT OF YOUTH AND INDUSTRY^ 

As it is possible to establish a connection between the lack 
of public recreation and the vicious excitements and trivial 
amusements which become their substitutes, so it may be illu- 
minating to trace the connection between the monotony and dull- 
ness of factory work and the petty immoralities which are often 
the youth's protest against them. 

There are many city neighborhoods in which practically every 
young person who has attained the age of fourteen years enters 
a factory. When the work itself offers nothing of interest, and 
when no public provision is made for recreation, the situation 
becomes almost insupportable to the youth whose ancestors have 
been rough-working and hard-plaj'ing peasants. 

In such neighborhoods the joy of youth is well nigh extin- 
guished ; and in that long procession of factory workers, each 
morning and evening, the young walk almost as wearily and list- 
lessly as the old. Young people working in modern factories 
situated in cities still dominated by the ideals of Puritanism face 
a combination which tends almost irresistibly to overwhelm the 
spirit of youth. When the Puritan repression of pleasure was 
in the ascendant in America the people it dealt with lived on 
farms and villages where, although youthful pleasures might be 
frowned upon and crushed out, the young people still had a 
chance to find self-expression in their work. Plowing the field 
and spinning the flax could be carried on with a certain joyous- 
ness and vigor which the organization of modern industry too 
often precludes. Present industry based upon the inventions of 
the nineteenth century has little connection with the old patterns 
in which men have worked for generations. The modern factory 
calls for an expenditure of nervous energy almost mor-^ than it 
demands muscular effort, or at least machinery so far performs 

' From "Spirit of Youth and the City Streets," Chapter V., by Jane 
Addams. Copyright 1909 by The Macmillan Co. Reprinted with the kind 
permission of the publishers. 



44 SELECTED ARTICLES 

the work of thr. massive muscles, that greater stress is laid upon 
fine and exact movements necessarily involving nervous strain. 
But these movements are exactly of the type to which the muscles 
of a growing boy least readily respond, quite as the admonition 
to be accurate and faithful is that which appeals the least to his 
big primitive emotions. The demands made upon his eyes are 
complicated and trivial, the use of his muscles is fussy and 
monotonous, the relation between cause and effect is remote and 
obscure. Apparently no one is concerned as to what may be done 
to aid him in this process and to relieve it of its dullness and diffi- 
culty, to mitigate its strain and harshness. 

Perhaps never before have young people been expected to 
work from motives so detached from direct emotional incentive. 
Never has the age of marriage been so long delayed ; never has 
the work of youth been so separated from the family life and 
the public opinion of the community. Education alone can repair 
these loses. It alone has the power of organizing a child's ac- 
tivities with some reference to the life he will later lead and of 
giving him a clue as to what to select and what to eliminate 
when he comes into contact with contemporary social and indus- 
trial conditions. And until educators take hold of the situation, 
the rest of the community is powerless. 

In vast regions of the city which are completely dominated 
by the factory, it is as if the development of industry had out- 
run all the educational and social arrangements. 

The revolt of youth against uniformity and the necessity of 
following careful directions laid down by some one else, many 
times results in such nervous irritability that the youth, in spite 
of all sorts of prudential reasons, "throws up his job," if only to 
get outside the factory walls into the freer street, just as the 
narrowness of the school inclosure induces many a boy to jump 
the fence. 

When the boy is on the street, however, and is "standing 
around on the corner" with the gang to which he mysteriously 
attaches himself, he finds the difiiculties of direct untrammeled 
action almost as great there as they were in the factory, but for 
an entirely different set of reasons. The necessity so strongly 
felt in the factory for an outlet to his sudden and furious bursts 
of energy, his overmastering desire to prove that he could do 
things "without being bossed all the time," finds little chance for 
expression, for he discovers that in whatever really active pur- 
suit he tries to engage, he is promptly suppressed by the police. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 45 

After several futile attempts at self-expression, he returns to his 
street corner subdued and so far discouraged that when he has 
the next impulse to vigorous action he concludes that it is of no 
use, and sullenly settles back into inactivity. He thus learns to 
persuade himself that it is better to do nothing, or, as the psy- 
chologist would say, "to inhibit his motor impulses." 

When the same boy, as an adult workman, finds himself con- 
fronted with an unusual or an untoward condition in his work, he 
will fall back into this habit of inhibition, of making no effort 
toward independent action. When "slack times" comes, he will 
be the workman of least value, and the first to be dismissed, 
calmly accepting his position in the ranks of the unemployed 
because it will not be so unlike the many hours of idleness and 
vacuity to which he was accustomed as a boy. No help having 
been extended him in the moment of his first irritable revolt 
against industry, his whole life has been given a twist toward 
idleness and futility. He has not had the chance of recovery 
which the school system gives a like rebellious boy in a truant 
school. 

The unjustifiable lack of educational supervision during the 
first years of factory work makes it quite impossible for the 
modern educator to offer any real assistance to young people 
during that trying transitional period between school and indus- 
try. The young people themselves who fail to conform can do 
little but rebel against the entire situation, and the expressions 
of revolt roughly divide themselves into three classes. The first, 
resulting in idleness, may be illustrated from many a sad story 
of a boy or girl who has spent in the first spurt of premature and 
uninteresting work, all the energy which should have carried 
them through years of steady endeavor. 

This revolt against factory monotony is sometimes closely 
allied to that "moral fatigue" which results from assuming re- 
sponsibility prematurely. 

The second line of revolt manifests itself in an attempt to 
make up for the monotony of the work by a constant change 
from one occupation to another. This is an almost universal ex- 
perience among thousands of young people in their first impact 
with the industrial world. 

The startling results of the investigation undertaken in Massa- 
chusetts by the Douglas Commission showed how casual and de- 
moralizing the first few years of factory life become to thou- 
sands of unprepared boys and girls ; in their first restlessness and 



46 SELECTED ARTICLES 

maladjustment they change from one factory to another, working 
only for a few weeks or months in each, and they exhibit no 
interest in any of them save for the amount of wages paid. At 
the end of their second year of employment many of them are 
less capable than when they left school and are actually receiving 
less wages. The report of the commission made clear that while 
the two years between fourteen and sixteen were most valuable 
for educational purposes, they were almost useless for industrial 
purposes, that no trade would receive as an apprentice a boy under 
sixteen, that no industry requiring skill and workmanship could 
utilize these untrained children and that they not only demoral- 
ized themselves, but in a sense industry itself. 

An investigation of one thousand tenement children in New 
York who had taken out their "working papers" at the age of 
fourteen, reported that during the first working year a third of 
them had averaged six places each. These reports but confirm the 
experience of those of us who live in an industrial neighborhood 
and who continually see these restless young workers, in fact 
there are moments when this constant changing seems to be all 
that saves them from the fate of those other children who hold 
on to a monotonous task so long that they finally incapacitate 
themselves for all work. It often seems to me an expression of 
the instinct of self-preservation, as in the case of a young Swedish 
boy who during a period of two years abandoned one piece of 
factory work after another, saying "he could not stand it," until 
in the chagrin following the loss of his ninth place he announced 
his intention of leaving the city and allowing his mother and little 
sisters to shift for themselves. At this critical juncture a place 
was found for him as lineman in a telephone company ; climbing 
telephone poles and handling wires apparently supplied him with 
the elements of outdoor activity and danger which was necessary 
to hold his interest, and he became the steady support of his 
family. 

But while we know the discouraging effect ot idleness upon 
ihe boy who has thrown up his ;ob and refuses to work again, 
and we also know the restlessness and lack of discipline resulting 
from the constant change from one factory to another, there is 
still a third manifestation of maladjustment of which one's mem- 
ory and the Juvenile Court records unfortunately furnish many 
examples. The spirit of revolt in these cases has led to distinct 
disaster. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 47 

Knowing as educators do that thousands of the city youth 
will enter factory life at an age as early as the state law will per- 
mit; instructed as the modern teacher is as to youth's require- 
ments for a normal mental and muscular development, it is hard 
to understand the apathy in regard to youth's inevitable experi- 
ence in modern industry. Are the educators, like the rest of us, so 
caught in admiration of the astonishing achievements of modern 
industry that they forget the children themselves? 

A Scotch educator who recently visited America considered 
it very strange that with a remarkable industrial development all 
about us, affording such amazing educational opportunities, our 
schools should continually cling to a past which did not fit the 
American temperament, was not adapted to our needs, and made 
no vigorous pull upon our faculties. He concluded that our edu- 
cators, overwhelmed by the size and vigor of American industry, 
were too timid to seize upon the industrial situation and to ex- 
tract its enormous educational value. He lamented that this lack 
of courage and initiative failed not only to fit the child for an 
intelligent and conscious participation in industrial life, but that 
it was reflected in the industrial development itself ; that industry 
had fallen back into old habits, and repeated traditional mistakes 
until American cities exhibited stupendous extensions of the 
medievalisms in the traditional Ghetto, and of the hideousness in 
the Black Country of Lancashire. 

He contended that this condition is the inevitable result of 
separating education from contemporary life. Education becomes 
unreal and far fetched, while industry becomes ruthless and ma- 
terialistic. In spite of the severity of the indictment, one much 
more severe and well deserved might have been brought against 
us. He might have accused us not only of wasting, but of mis- 
using and of trampling under foot the first tender instincts and 
impulses which are the source of all charm and beauty and art, 
because we fail to realize that by premature factory work, for 
which the youth is unprepared, society perpetually extinguishes 
that variety and promise, that bloom of life, which is the unique 
possession of the young. He might have told us that our cities 
would continue to be traditionally cramped and dreary until we 
comprehend that youth alone has the power to bring to reality 
the vision of the "Coming City of Mankind, full of life, full of 
the spirit of creation." 

A few educational experiments are carried on in Cincinnati, 



48 SELECTED ARTICLES 

in Boston and in Chicago, in which the leaders of education and 
industry unite in a common aim and purpose. A few more are 
carried on by trade unionists, who in at least two of the trades 
are anxious to give to their apprentices and journeymen the wider 
culture afforded by the "capitalistic trade schools" which they 
suspect of preparing strike-breakers ; still a few other schools 
have been founded by public spirited citizens to whom the situa- 
tion has become unendurable, and one or two more such experi- 
ments are attached to the public school system itself. All of these 
schools are still blundering in method and unsatisfactory in their 
results, but a certain trade school for girls, in New York, which 
is preparing young girls of fourteen for the sewing trade, already 
so overcrowded and subdivided that there remains very little edu- 
cation for the worker, is conquering this difficult industrial situ- 
ation by equipping each apprentice with "the informing mind." 
If a child goes into a sewing factory with a knowledge of the 
work she is doing in relation to the finished product; if she is 
informed concerning the material she is manipulating and the 
processes to which it is subjected; if she understands the design 
she is elaborating in its historic relation to art and decoration, 
her daily life is lifted from drudgery to one of self-conscious 
activity, and her pleasure and intelligence is registered in her 
product. 

I remember a little colored girl in this New York school who 
was drawing for the pattern she was about to embroider, a care- 
fully elaborated acanthus leaf. Upon my inquiry as to the design, 
she replied : "It is what the Egyptians used to put on everything, 
because they saw it so much growing in the Nile ; and then the 
Greeks copied it, and sometimes you can find it now on the build- 
ings downtown." She added shyly : "Of course, I like it awfully 
well because it was first used by people living in Africa where 
the colored folks come from." Such a reasonable interest in work 
not only reacts upon the worker, but is, of course, registered in 
the product itself. 

If educators could go upon a voyage of discovery into that 
army of boys and girls who enter industry each year, what 
values might they not discover; what treasures might they not 
conserve and develop if they would direct the play instinct into 
the art impulse and utilize that power of variation which industry 
so sadly needs. No force will be sufficiently powerful and wide- 
spread to redeem industry from its mechanism and materialism 
save the freed power in every single individual. 



■ VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 49 

In order to do this, however, we must go back a little over the 
educational road to a training of the child's imagination, as well 
as to his careful equipment with a technique. A little child makes 
a very tottering house of cardboard and calls it a castle. The im- 
portant feature there lies in the fact that he has expressed a 
castle, and it is not for his teacher to draw undue attention to 
the fact that the corners are not well put together, but rather to 
listen to and to direct the story which centers about this effort 
at creative expression. A little later, however, it is clearly the 
business of the teacher to call attention to the quality of the dove- 
tailing in which the boy at the manual training bench is engaged, 
for there is no value in dovetailing a box unless it is accurately 
done. At one point the child's imagination is to be emphasized, 
and at another point his technique is important — and he will need 
both in the industrial life ahead of him. 

There is no doubt that there is a third period, when the boy 
is not interested in the making of a castle, or a box, or anything 
eJse ; unless it appears to him to bear a direct relation to the 
future ; unless it has something to do with earning a living. At 
this later moment he is chiefly anxious to play the part of a man 
and to take his place in the world. The fact that a boy at four- 
teen wants to go out and make his living makes that the moment 
when he should be educated with reference to that interest, and 
the records of many high schools show that if he is not thus edu- 
cated, he bluntly refuses to be educated at all. The forces pulling 
him to "work" are not only the overmastering desire to earn 
money and be a man, but, if the family purse is small and empty, 
include also his family loyalty and affection, and over against 
them, we at present place nothing but a vague belief on the part 
of his family and himself that education is a desirable thing and 
may eventually help him "on in the world." It is of course diffi- 
cult to adapt education to this need ; it means that education 
must be planned so seriously and definitely for those two years 
between fourteen and sixteen that it will be actual trade training 
so far as it goes, with attention given to the condition under 
which the money will be actually paid for industrial skill ; but at 
the same time, that the implications, the connections, the relations 
to the industrial world, will be made clear. A man who makes, 
year after year, but one small wheel in a modern watch factory, 
may, if his education has properly prepared him, have a fuller 
life than did the old watch-maker who made a watch from begin- 
ning to end. It takes thirty-nine people to make a coat in a 



50 SELECTED ARTICLES 

modern tailoring establishment, yet those same thirty-nine peo- 
ple might produce a coat in a spirit of "team work" which would 
make the entire process as much more exhilarating than the work 
of the old solitary tailor, as playing in a baseball nine gives more 
pleasure to a boy than that afforded by a solitary game of hand 
ball on the side of the barn. But is is quite impossible to imagine 
a successful game of baseball in which each player should be 
drilled only in his own part, and should know nothing of the 
relation of that part to the whole game. In order to make the 
watch wheel, or the coat collar interesting, they must be con- 
nected with the entire product — must include fellowship as well 
as the pleasures arising from skilled workmanship and a culti- 
vated imagination. 

When all the young people working in factories shall come 
to use their faculties intelligently, and as a matter of course to be 
interested in what they do, then our manufactured products may 
at last meet the demands of a cultivated nation, because they will 
be produced by cultivated workmen. The machine will not be 
abandoned by any means, but will be subordinated to the intel- 
ligence of the man who manipulates it, and will be used as a tool. 
It may come about in time that an educated public will become 
inexpressibly bored by manufactured objects which reflect abso- 
lutely nothing of the minds of men who made them, that they 
may come to dislike an object made by twelve unrelated men, 
even as we do not care for a picture which has been painted by 
a dozen different men, not because we have enunciated a theory 
in regard to it, but because such a picture loses all its significance 
and has no meaning or message. We need to apply the same 
principle but very little further until we shall refuse to be sur- 
rounded by manufactured objects which do not represent some 
gleam of intelligence on the part of the producer. Hundreds of 
people have already taken that step so far as all decoration and 
ornament are concerned, and it would require but one short step 
more. In the meantime we are surrounded by stupid articles 
which give us no pleasure, and the young people producing them 
are driven into all sorts of expedients in order to escape work 
vihich has been made impossible because all human interest has 
been extracted from it. That this is not mere theory may be 
demonstrated by the facts that many times the young people may 
be spared the disastrous effects of this third revolt against the 
monotony of industry if work can be found for them in a place 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 51 

where the daily round is less grinding and presents more variety. 
Fortunately, in every city there are places outside of factories 
where occupation of a more normal type of labor may be secured, 
and often a restless boy can be tided over this period if he is put 
into one of these occupations. The experience in every boys' club 
can furnish illustrations of this. 

A factory boy who had been brought into the Juvenile Court 
many times because of his persistent habit of borrowing the 
vehicles of physicians as they stood in front of houses of patients, 
always meaning to "get back before the doctor came out," led a 
contented and orderly life after a place had been found for him 
as a stable boy in a large livery establishment where his love for 
horses could be legitimately gratified. 

America perhaps more than any other country in the world 
can demonstrate what applied science has accomplished for in- 
dustry; it has not only made possible the utilization of all sorts 
of unpromising raw material, but it has tremendously increased 
the invention and elaboration of machinery. The time must come, 
however, if indeed the moment has not already arrived, when ap- 
plied science will have done all that it can for the development of 
machinery. It may be that machines cannot be speeded up any 
further without putting unwarranted strain upon the nervous 
system of the worker ; it may be that further elaboration will so 
sacrifice the workman who feeds the machine that industrial ad- 
vance will lie not in the direction of improvement in machinery, 
but in the recovery and education of the workman. This refusal 
to apply "the art of life" to industry continually drives out of it 
many promising young people. Some of them, impelled by a 
creative impulse which will not be denied, avoid industry alto- 
gether and demand that their ambitious parents give them lessons 
in "china painting" and "art work", which clutters the over- 
crowded parlor of the more prosperous workingman's home with 
useless decorated plates, and handpainted "drapes," whereas the 
plates upon the table and the rugs upon the floor used daily by 
thousands of weary housewives are totally untouched by the 
beauty and variety which this ill-directed art instinct might have 
given them had it been incorporated into industry. 

Educators are thus gradually developing the courage and 
initiative to conserve for industry the young worker himself so 
that his mind, his power of variation his art instinct, his intel- 
ligent skill, may ultimately be reflected in the industrial product. 



52 SELECTED ARTICLES 

That would imply that industry must be seized upon and con- 
quered by those educators, who now either avoid it altogether by 
taking refuge in the caves of classic learning or beg the question 
by teaching the tool industry advocated by Ruskin and Morris 
in their first reaction against the present industrial system. It 
would mean that educators must bring industry into "the king- 
dom of the mind" ; and pervade it with the human spirit. 

The discovery of the labor power of youth was to our age like 
the discovery of a new natural resource, although it was merely 
incidental to the invention of modern machinery and the conse- 
quent subdivision of labor. In utilizing it thus ruthlessly we are 
not only in danger of quenching the divine fire of youth, but we 
are imperiling industry itself when we venture to ignore these 
very sources of beauty, of variety and of suggestion. 



THE DANGER OF UNSKILL' 

Two human streams pour ceaselessly into the sea of American 
industry. One of these brings to us the immigrant, the man of 
foreign stock, alien in blood and customs, and more and more 
from the backward and "beaten" peoples of eastern Europe. The 
sources of the other stream are in our own life, and upon it are 
borne America's own children who, in the passing of years, are 
to face the duties of manhood and womanhood. These two 
streams fill the vast national reservoir of labor upon which de- 
pends in large measure the future of American industry and 
American moral welfare. This is the first fact to which attention 
is directed. 

The second fact is the changing character of industry, aside 
from its human element. We are in the midst of the great 
r mechanical revolution whose beginning in America goes back to 
the early years of the nineteenth century, but which since the civil 
war has been uprooting the old order, supplanting its simpler 
methods with marvelous rapidity and tremendous power. 

The human consequence of this revolution is the driving out 
of the man by the machine, on the one hand, and the increasing 
specialization of labor on the other. And the labor supplanted 
by the machine, if it is to fit into the resulting more specialized 

* By Walter G. Beach. Popular Science Monthly. 37:178-86. August, 1910. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION S3 

employments, must have skill. Primitive man was unspecialized 
and his skill was of the slightest, his knowledge being insignif- 
icant. The man of to-day finds that sheer muscle is at a discount, 
and his weaker but better trained fellow passes him in the race. 
It is not meant that there is not a great demand for usnkilled 
labor, but the unskilled laborer works under a constantly growing 
handicap. 

In our earlier national history, it was possible for us to rely 
for prosperity upon the resources of nature. Force of body and 
character sufficient to brave the hardships of a raw and untrained 
world, and to pluck from n.iture the bounties which she furnished 
in abundance, was the qnr.lity most essential. Each man or fam- 
ily was a unit in produc.ion; cooperation or combination on any 
extended scale involving training, was not found or needed. In- 
dividualism and the overthrow of nature, and her exploitation, 
were the important features of our national life which assured 
success; and it was just these qualities of endurance, courage 
force, assertiveness, aided by sheer muscle, which the selective 
process of our early immigration brought to us. Only men and 
socmen of such qualities could and would face the long and 
dreary sea voyage and brave the peril of the unknown new world. 
Only the man of hope, of ambition, poor in the wealth of the 
world, but rich in determination, force and foresight, was suited 
for such migration. So too, it often was the leader of the ad- 
vance movement of civilization in Europe who, because of polit- 
ical oppression, led a vanguard of the best blood of his country 
to share the bounties of nature in America. 

But the day in which we can rely for prosperity upon nature's 
bounty is past. Her resources have been explored and divided up. 
And while new resources continue to be brought to light, they are 
the possession of the few, and offer little of hope to the hungry 
immigrant from the old world. 

We can not, therefore depend exclusively upon nature and 
the raw force and determination of our people to maintain or 
continue the oldtime progress and high position of America. 
More and more our dependence must be placed upon ourselves 
rather than upon nature alone, and in particular upon a character 
acquired through training. The new industrial life, it has been 
said, demands skill. If America is to advance in industry, she 
must face this demand ; her people must be trained and trained 
industrially. 



54 SELECTED ARTICLES 

If such is a true statement of the general character of the pro- 
ductive process of to-day, it is pertinent to inquire if the two 
streams of humanity, which furnished the labor necessary to pro- 
duction, are fitted to the more specialized demands of this proc- 
cess. Is our labor skilled? And what are its means of attaining 
skill? 

Let us consider first the stream of immigration. The report 
of the commissioner general of immigration for 1907 shows that 
out of the total number of 1,285,000 coming to this country from 
other parts of the world in the year 1906, about eighty-three per 
cent were without skill requisite to enter a skilled industry. If 
we eliminate from this number the women, children, aged and 
such other persons as are described as having no occupation at 
all, there remains fifty-nine per cent of the total who are of indus- 
trial age and sex and yet are distinctly unskilled laborers. A 
large number, too, of those excluded are women who will enter 
unskilled trades, and many are children who will begin to earn 
at the earliest possible time in unskilled employments. 

The fact that such a large proportion of the immigrant popu- 
lation is unskilled is inevitable. It is necessary only to recall that 
the great influx of the present and recent past is from central and 
southern Europe, from regions in which the opportunity to ac- 
quire skill is comparatively slight, and where the call for skill is 
not yet dominant. 

If it be agreed, then, that the stream of immigration is pour- 
ing a mass of unskilled labor into our country, consider what is 
the case in regard to the second source of our industrial life. 
What is the tendency to skill and the opportunity to acquire it 
among our own children who must soon enter industry? It is im- 
possible to state this problem in a statistical fashion ; but a fair 
idea may be obtained from a study of the industrial situation. 
Skill may be gained through two, and only two, methods. It 
must come either in connection with industry itself or in some 
way of preparation outside it ; either through a system of appren- 
ticeship or by way of vocational schools or school studies. In the 
older state of industry, the apprentice system of the guilds con- 
stituted a logical and efiicient method of training. Boys became 
skilled workers under direction of a master and in the actual 
work of production. The apprentice system was the great indus- 
trial school of the past, and not only because it led to industrial 
skill, but also because it gave at least something of that mental 
discipline and power which we associate with the idea of a school. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 55 

This system, as is well known, is largely a thing of the past. 
It is true that apprentices are now received in some industrial 
plants, but the number so received is entirely inadequate to fur- 
nish a supply of skilled labor for the many lines of trade and 
industry. It is enough to say that the modern factory with its 
great specialization, is not as a rule, wilHng to train its skilled 
workers. It wishes its workers to come to it already skilled. 

If training can not be gained as a part of the actual productive 
process, may it be acquired outside that process? Or, to state it 
differently, does our school system give the members of the grow- 
ing generation a training which fits them to enter the industrial 
life as skilled workers? 

We have in this country a considerable and growing number 
of trade schools and technical schools. We also find evening 
schools where vocational training may be obtained ; and there are 
other opportunities of a similar sort. But it is not necessary to 
prove that there is but a scant beginning in this direction, as this 
is admitted by all students of the subject. It is clear that our 
present means of training for trade and industry through special 
schools is entirely inadequate, and it is equally well admitted that 
our common school system does not meet the need in this direc- 
tion. Its curriculum has been determined by other interests than 
the economic needs of a constantly increasing industrial popu- 
lation. 

In the excellent study by Professor Thorndike,^ based upon 
returns from schools of twenty-three cities having a population 
of 25,000 or more, it is demonstrated beyond a doubt that the lack 
of opportunity for vocational training is a great cause of that 
heavy dropping out of school in early grades which thereby closes 
school education to a large portion of our children. Dr. Thorn- 
dike finds that only twenty-seven per cent of those entering the 
first grade of the common school continue into the first year of 
the high school ; and of these, thirty-seven per cent drop out by 
the end of the first high-school year. The main cause of this 
enormous elimination from the high school has to do with the 
nature of the high-school course of study. Evidently a consid- 
erable number begin the high school at the age of fourteen or 
fifteen, an age at which little skill has been gained, yet which is 
favorable to its acquisition, but are discouraged by the lack of 
opportunity in this direction and so leave school altogether.'' 

^ "The Elimination of Pupils from School," p. 118 fiF. 

* See Ayrcs, "Laggards in our schools" for different percentages. — E, R. 



56 SELECTED ARTICLES 

As is well known, it was found by the Massachusetts Com- 
mission on Industrial and Technical Education that "25,000 chil- 
dren between fourteen and sixteen years of age are at work or 
idle," that is, not in school ; and the result of this careful investi- 
gation was to make entirely certain that these children had 
dropped out of school because they did not find there any possi- 
bility for training along lines which would prepare for the 
making of a livelihood. 

We must conclude, therefore, that neither within the organi- 
zation of industry itself, nor outside of it, in schools of any type, 
is there opportunity for the stream of growing boys and girls to 
gain in an economic manner that degree of vocational training 
which the conditions of modern industry demand. 

What then is the situation which we face? First, the demand 
of our specialized commercial and industrial life for a larger and 
larger percentage of skilled workers. Secondly, a stream of for- 
eign immigration pouring upon our shores an unskilled popula- 
tion much of which could not acquire skill readily, even if oppor- 
tunity were presented, and which must inevitably supply largely 
the demand for unskilled labor. Third, a stream of growing boys 
and girls who must earn their living through our present complex 
and specialized forms of industry. Fourth, a comparatively slight 
chance of their gaining skill after they enter the industrial life, 
and no adequate opportunity to gain skill through the school 
before entering upon this work. What is the result? A demand 
for trained men and women, on the one hand, and on the other 
a vain beating against the bars which defend the skilled positions, 
by a mass of desponding, dissatisfied unskilled workers, with 
only the most venturesome and aggressive pushing through into 
skilled positions in a manner harmful and exhausting to them- 
selves and weakening to the nation. 

It is at this point that the real menace of unskill becomes 
clear. Much has been written and spoken about the retarding ef- 
fect of unskill upon our national production, and this is indeed 
serious. But the real danger is more fundamental. Of greater 
importance than the product of labor is the worker himself. The 
effect upon our people of such a situation as has been described, 
is the real danger. The problem is not primarily industrial but 
social. Unskill in the face of a demand for skill leads to degen- 
eracy. In this fact lies its greatest menace. In his admirable 
study of "Misery and its Causes," Dr. Devine wisely suggests that 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 57 

the great cause of misery is maladjustment, and there is strong 
reason to think that his conclusion is correct. But just in so far 
as it is true that economic facts lie back of and condition the 
progress of civilization, to that extent failure to meet the funda- 
mental economic facts involved in advancing stages of industry 
must constitute or lead to the greatest social maladjustment and 
consequent degradation and misery. It is maladjustment in re- 
spect to the most vital phase of life. 

A great proportion of the young people of our country must 
enter an industrial calling. In what way does this unfitness for 
it affect their lives ? The result is best shown by the often-quoted 
finding of the Massachusetts Commission on Industrial and Tech- 
nical Education, for 1906. Out of 25,000 young people of from 
fourteen to sixteen years of age in that state not in school, it is 
reported that thirty-three per cent were in absolutely unskilled 
trades and sixty-four per cent in what are called low-grade indus- 
tries, where the skill of the workers is very slight. Only less than 
two per cent had found their way into really skilled industries. 
What does it mean, humanly speaking, to have a child employed 
in an unskilled industry? Simply that the child usually has come 
to the end of its development. On the side of industry it means 
a permanently small production and low earning power ; on the 
side of the individual life, it means a stagnant mind and the con- 
sequences which flow from it. For it is not true that children 
remain in these low-grade occupations for a brief time, and from 
them pass to higher and more skilled employment. The nature 
of industrial and commercial technic is such that there is a chasm 
between unskilled and skilled employments. There is no passage 
from one to the other. The elevator boy or messenger boy is not 
being trained to be a mechanic or a telegrapher or any other 
more or less skilled worker. These and other low-paid juvenile 
employments represent a class of work of a special sort from 
which there is no exit and which rather unfit than fit one for 
better work. In the street trades, in candy-making, in cotton, 
woolen, knitting and other mill work, and in many other places 
such work is found. To a considerable extent it is work which 
should be done by machines and not by growing boys and girls. 
The child who leaves school to enter one of these positions, con- 
demns himself in the majority of cases to an unskilled life. He 
passes from one unskilled position to another, becoming more 
and more discontented as he finds it impossible to advance in 



58 SELECTED ARTICLES 

wages and responsibility. Discontent, hopelessness, shiftlessness, 
take the place of ambition and progressive force. The unskilled 
employment is not disciplinary and it does not lead to a skilled 
employment which is disciplinary. In the organization of indus- 
try, the avoidance of waste is a great aim ; yet the lessening of 
the greatest of all wastes — the waste of life — receives scanty at- 
tention. 

The writer of "The Long Day,"^ in drawing upon her own 
experience as an unskilled girl, looking for employment in a great 
city, summarizes the situation in these words : 

For sad and terrible though it be, the truth is that the majority of 
"unfortunates," whether of the specifically criminal or of the prostitute 
class, are what they are, not because they are inherently vicious, but 
because they were failures as workers and wage earners. They were 
failures as such, primarily, for no other reason than that they did not like 
to work. And they did not like to work, not because they are lazy — they 
are anything but lazy — but because they did not know how to work. 

And again the same writer records her conclusions in regard 
to the educational need of girls in view of the modern demand 
for skill : 

And there are other things more important than the "three R's" which 
she should be taught. She should be taught how to work — how to work 
intelligently. She should be trained young in the fundamental race activi- 
ties, in the natural human instincts for making something with the hands 
or of doing something with the hands, and of taking infinite pleasure in 
making it perfect, in doing it well.* 

And it may be added that what is true of girls is equally true 
of boys. The great cause of failure and resulting degeneracy is 
lack of training. 

It must be recognized that the vocational impulse is deep- 
seated, and as the child advances into youth he begins to look 
to the doing of his life's work. He is restless with simply aca- 
demic subjects, however valuable. He is concrete in his demands. 
He wishes to do and earn. But it is an interest in the deep hu- 
man instincts and forces which must be laid hold of, if we are 
to develop a healthy, hopeful life; and among these we must 
recognize the economic instinct leading to the desire to earn 
and to make a place in the world of production. How much of 
progress flowed from the development resulting from the voca- 

' Page 277. 
* Page 294. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 59 

tional education of the apprentice of the guild organization, it 
is not possible to say; but it certainly was a factor of no small 
import. And the close association of the wonderful expression 
of artistic genius in Italy with the development of the skilled 
artisan and craftsman, is a feature of social history which should 
lead to serious reflection. 

But, further, lack of skill means insecurity of employment 
for adult workers ; and no greater danger threatens labor than 
this. Every slackening of trade, every depression of business, 
every interference with industrial progress, every mistake of 
judgment of the organizers of industry, falls with heaviest force 
upon the unskilled. Their value in industry is least, their tenure 
of employment is most easily imperilled. The past two winters 
with armies of unemployed in every large city, recruited largely, 
we are told by competent observers, from the unskilled, bear 
witness to this fact. 

A consequence of economic insecurity is a weakening of 
moral tone and grip; this is the greatest of all dangers to society. 
"Every great industrial crisis leaves behind it," says Dr. Warner, 
" a legacy of individual degeneracy and personal unthrift."* "In- 
voluntary idleness intensifies and perpetuates incapacity." Noth- 
ing so begets failure as the consciousness of failure. The dis- 
cipline of regular and continuous occupation is a support which 
few can do without. At the recent meeting of the Britsh Asso- 
ciation for the Advancement of Science, a member of the Royal 
Commission on the Poor Laws held that pauperism arises mainly 
from the casual worker class, that is, in the main, the unskilled 
class whose security of employment is slightest and whose mental 
attitude is tlierefore least hopeful and healthy. To live on the 
edge of social existence blinds the eyes to the social order which 
is not near the edge. Hopefulness of mind is a social force im- 
possible to measure. It is hope which marks the difference be- 
tween slavery and freedom, between stagnation and progress. 
But insecurity weakens and destroys hope, and if employment 
continues to be insecure, the result must be an increasing body of 
hopeless men and women, feeding, inevitably, the ranks of crim- 
inal and pauper degeneracy. 

Viewed from this point, the significance of unskill becomes 
tremendous. Lack of skill stands as the bar to mental progress 
even in an imskilled age; but in an age demanding skill, the 
lack of it is itself a condition leading to degeneration. Through 

^A. G. Warner, "American Charities," pp. 103 and 97, 



6o SELECTED ARTICLES 

unskill, labor is condemned to low wages, a narrow outlook, an 
inability to meet the modern demands of industry; by remaining 
economically unfit, men become socially unfit and are forced for 
themselves and their children into the ceaseles round of struggle 
for bare subsistence, with consequent hopelessness, bodily decay 
and resultant misery. It should be clear that in refusing to meet 
the industrial needs of our age for skilled workers the nation 
is condemning a considerable part of its population to an in- 
evitable economic unfitness and resultant mental sterility, since 
economic well-being is essential to mental stability and progress. 
Degeneracy, thus, is born of the unskilled hand and the un- 
trained mind. 

There is one further position which needs to be considered. 
It is becoming clear, as investigation into social life proceeds, 
that human progress depends largely upon society's creative 
minds, its "inventors," its originators, whose fertile ideas are 
passed on to the mind of the mass of mankind. It is these sug- 
gestive and fruitful ideas which mark the stages of advance- 
ment and which constitute the essence of civilization. 

And it may be said, further, to be a matter of at least large 
probability that these creative minds may be brought forth in 
any stratum of society. Whether they shall develop and give 
to civilization the benefit of their talent, depends upon the con- 
ditions surrounding them. They may grow and become mentally 
fruitful, or be repressed and become sterile, according as social 
environment is favorable or the contrary. It would seem that 
society should make every effort in its own interest, to encour- 
age their nurture and preservation. But, as Dr. Ward has so well 
shown,® education is the greatest social agency for providing that 
the mind, strong by nature, shall develop and give its ideas to 
the world. How great therefore is the urgency that society 
should afford educational opportunity to all classes of its people. 
How great a part of the possible progress of the race or nation 
is hindered by the social waste of its creative ability which never 
arrives at its period of fertile productiveness for lack of suitable 
social opportunity. 

It should, however, be clear from what has already been said 
that the only education which can reach the masses of a nation 
and hold them long enough to be of educational service to them, 

' "Applied Sociology," chapter X. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 6i 

is that which looks toward vocation. And it therefore follows 
that only by making our school system, to some degree, indus- 
trial and vocational, and thereby holding our children under 
educational influences for a longer period, can the great number 
of productive minds, born in poverty or other unfavorable con- 
ditions, be preserved and brought to that stage of development 
in which they may advance the nation. 

Here, then, is the real danger of unskill. Modern industry 
calls for skill. In the fact of this demand, lack of skill leads to 
unemployment and so to social weakness. Lack of skill leads, 
also, too poor employment; and so likewise, carries men into 
shiftlessness, discontent and degeneration. On the other hand, 
skill breeds hope and hence mental development. It opens new 
avenues of activity and draws out otherwise buried talent, and 
thus preserves the originators to the race. But our two streams 
of labor are inadequately trained for the economic demand. 
What we should do in regard to the stream of immigrants is a 
problem by itself. But as for our own children, the demand for 
opportunity to gain that skill, which will enable them to fit the 
economic life of to-day, is a very urgent and vital one. 



NEED OF AN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 
IN AN INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY' 



The need for industrial education may be approached from 
many standpoints. Industrial education may be treated as an 
indispensable factor in material prosperity, or as a factor in pro- 
moting the ability of a nation in the competitive race for com- 
mercial supremacy among nations — a point of view from which 
the example of Germany is urged. Or it may be regarded from 
the standpoint of its effect upon the contentment of the workers, 
or as a means of providing a more stable and efficient set of 
employes, and reducing the waste now found in most manu- 
facturing enterprises. All of these things have their importance. 
But they all look at education as an instrument for external 

1 By John Dewey, Manual Training and Vocational Education. 17:409- 
14. February, 19 16. 



62 SELECTED ARTICLES 

ends, and they pass lightly over that part of the subject repre- 
sented in our title by the words, "education in an industrial 
democracy." The standpoint from which we are to approach 
the matter is, in short, that of the demands laid upon education 
by the need of fostering democracy in a country largely indus- 
trial, and where the need of making the spirit of democracy 
permeate industry is recognized. 

Hence, a few words about democracy itself seem to be called 
for. Democracy has its political aspect. Probably this is the 
first aspect to present itself to view. Politically, democracy 
means a form of government which does not esteem the well- 
being of one individual or class above that of another; a system 
of laws and administrations which ranks the happiness and 
interests of all as upon the same plane, and before whose law 
and administration all individuals are alike, or equal. But ex- 
perience has shown that such a state of affairs is not realizable 
save where all interests have an opportunity to be heard, to 
make themselves felt, to take a hand in shaping policies. Con- 
sequently, universal suffrage, direct participation in choice of 
rulers, is an essential part of political democracy. 

But political democracy is not the whole of democracy. On 
the contrary, experience has proved that it cannot stand in iso- 
lation. It can be effectively maintained only where democracy 
is social — where, if you please, it is moral. A social democracy 
signifies, most obviously, a state of social life where there is 
wide and varied distribution of opportunities; where there is 
much social mobility or scope for change of position and sta- 
tion ; where there is free circulation of experiences and ideas, 
making possible a wide recognition of common interests and 
purposes, and where there is such an obvious utility of the 
social and political organization to its members as to enlist 
their warm and steady support in its behalf. Without ease in 
change, society gets stratified into classes, and these classes pre- 
vent anything like fair and even distribution of opportunity for 
all. The stratified classes become fossilized, and a fedual soci- 
ety comes into existence. Accident, rather than capacity and 
training, determine career, reward, and repute. Since democ- 
racies forbid, by their very nature, highly centralized govern- 
ments working by coercion, they depend upon shared interests 
and experiences for their unity and upon personal appreciation 
of the value of institutions for stability and defense. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 63 

Such qualities as these, such qualities as insistence upon 
widespread opportunity, free exchange of ideas and experiences, 
extensive realization of the purposes which hold men together, 
are intellectual and emotional. The importance of such qualities 
is the reason why we ventured to call a social democracy a moral 
democracy. And they are traits which do not grow spontan- 
eously on bushes. They have to be planted and nurtured. They 
are dependent upon education. It is no accident that all democ- 
racies have put a high estimate upon education ; that schooling has 
been their first care and enduring charge. Only through educa- 
tion can equality of opportunity be anything more than a phrase. 
Accidental inequalities of birth, wealth, and learning are always 
tending to restrict the opportunties of some as compared with 
those of others. Only free and continued education can counter- 
act those forces which are always at work to restore, in however 
changed a form, feudal oligarchy. Democracy has to be bom 
anew every generation, and education is its midwife. More- 
over, it is only education which can guarantee widespread com- 
munity of interest and aim. In a complex society, ability to 
understand and sympathize with the operations and lot of others 
is a condition of common purpose which only education can pro- 
cure. The external differences of pursuit and experience are so 
very great, in our complicated industrial education, that men 
will not see across and thru the walls which separate them, 
unless they have been trained to do so. And without this lively 
and ardent sense of common life, it is hopeless to secure in 
individuals that loyalty to the organized group which needs to 
be an animating motive of conduct. 

To recall these generalities, these commonplaces, would be 
idle were it not that there is a tendency to drop them from view 
when the topic of industrial education is under consideration. 
Its purpose is often thot to be so much narrower, more prac- 
tical and technical, than the object of other established modes 
of education, that these features may be — nay, must be — left out 
of account. But the contrary is the case. Just because of the 
part played by industry in modern life, an education which has 
to do with preparation for it, must bear these considerations in 
mind more than other forms, if democracy is to remain an actu- 
ality. Just these things provide the controlling considerations 
for deciding the curriculums, methods, and administration of a 
system of industrial education. 



64 SELECTED ARTICLES 

There are many phases of industry, as at present carried on, 
which are unfavorable to a genuine democracy, just as, on the 
other hand, the development of modern industrial and commer- 
cial methods has been a chief factor in calling political democ- 
racy into existence and then endowing it with social aspira- 
tions. There are extreme divisions of work between the skilled 
and unskilled, and also between the most skilled workers on the 
technical side, whether inventors or doers, and the managers on 
the fiscal and marketing' side. These tend to segregate men and 
women into exclusive classes. The difference on the side of 
consumption between those who can barely maintain a low 
standard of living and those who are relieved by circumstances 
from any responsible thot for expenditure, and who give them- 
selves up to display and idleness, has never been as large or as 
overtly conspicuous as it is today. Older divisions of master 
and subject class tend to reinstate themselves in a subtle form. 

Machine industry, moreover, tends to reduce great masses of 
men to a level where their own work becomes mechanical and 
servile. Work loses its intellectual and esthetic cast and becomes 
a mere necessity to procure the pay which buys daily support. 
The machine operator engaged in manipulation of a machine 
becomes identified with the monotonous movements of the mon- 
ster he tends. As long as he has to do new things, he learns. 
The moment he has mastered his unchanging work it masters 
him ; its habits absorb and swallow his. Employers whose 
methods have bred lack of initiative, and have practically for- 
bidden workers to think, complain because men can not be 
found for places of greater responsibility. But the evils are far 
from being confined to the laboring class. When social respon- 
sibilities have at most to do with the expenditure of wealth, not 
with earning it, when business is pursued not as an exercise in 
social cooperation but as a means of power, the mind is so hard- 
ened and restricted that democracy becomes a mere name. 

To recall such danger is to recognize some of the offices thrust 
upon industrial education in a democracy. To counteract the 
soulless monotony of machine industry, a premium must be put 
upon initiative, intellectual independence, and inventiveness. 
Hence schooling must not model itself upon the automatic 
repetitiousness of machines, whether in the name of the false 
gods of practical skill or discipline. Personal control of power, 
strong discontent with whatever subordinates mental capacity 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 65 

to merely external regulation, must be made primary. The im- 
agination must be so stored that in the inevitable monotonous 
stretches of work, it may have worthy material of art and litera- 
ture and science upon which to feed, instead of being frittered 
away upon uftdisciplined dreamings and sensual fancies. New 
inventions and applications of science are actively remaking 
technical and technological methods of industry. Hence the 
desire for immediate results and immediate efficiency must be 
held in check by the need of securing powers which will enable 
individuals to adapt themselves to inevitable change. Otherwise 
they will become helpless burdens on society as the methods 
in which they have been trained pass away. Moreover, since 
the worker is to be an integral part of a self-managing society, 
pains must be taken at every turn to see that instead of being 
prepared for a special, exclusive, practical service, as a hide 
might be prepared for a shoemaker, he is educated into ability 
to recognize and apply his own abilities, is given self-command, 
intellectual as well as moral. 

Let it not be thot that this is a plea for the continuation of 
the older so-called "general education," on the ground that it 
also made its defense that it trained general capacity and brot 
the individual to a consciousness of himself and his surround- 
ings. The material of his traditional general education is not 
adapted to the needs and activities of an industrial society. It 
was developed (as were its methods) in times when our present 
industrial society was not. The simple fact is, that no attempt 
has ever been made to discover the factors of scientific and 
social importance in present-day industry and in a common demo- 
cratic life, and then to utilize them for educational purposes • as 
was done by our spiritual progenitors in the work of selecting 
the factors of value in a non-industrial and feudal society so 
as to make them count for education. The work which has to 
be done by a system of industrial education in an industrial 
democracy is to study the most important processes of today in 
farming, manufacturing, and transportation to find out what are 
the fundamental and general elements which compose them, and 
thereby develop a new kind of general education on top of which 
the more special and technical training for distinctive vocations 
may be undertaken. 

As a new subject-matter is needed, so are new methods. Our 
inherited instruction knows, in the main, two kinds of methods. 



66 ■ SELECTED ARTICLES 

One is that of habituation in various speciaHzed modes of skill, 
methods of repetition, and drill, with a view to getting auto- 
matic skill. This is the method which is most likely to be re- 
sorted to in an unintelligent industrial training. It is adapted to 
securing mechanical proficiency in a narrow trade, but is no 
more adapted to the specific needs of industrial democracy than 
is the other inherited method — the theoretical and scholastic 
method of acquiring, expounding, and interpreting literary ma- 
terials. What is needed is a recognition of the intellectual value 
of labor — the same kind of recognition of intellectual results in 
facts, ideas, and methods to be got from ordinary industrial 
materials and processes that the laboratory (significant name) 
has accomplished for a limited range of materials and processes. 
Or, put the other way about, what is needed is a development 
of laboratory methods which will connect them with the ordinary 
industrial activities of men. In that case, there will be no 
danger that the necessary personal insight and initiative will 
not be secured. 

The value of the older humanistic methods was that they 
had a vital relation to human affairs and interests. But that is 
a reason for attempting to discover the humanism contained in 
our existing social life, not for the reverse policy of despising 
the present and taking flight to the past. I do not underestimate 
the difficulties in the way of taking a spiritual survey of our 
present industrial society and applying its results to education. 
Strong class interests stand in its way, for it would be sure to 
utilize education as a means for bringing to more general recog- 
nition the evils and defects of present industrial aims and meth- 
ods, and in making more wide-spread a knowledge of the means 
by which these evils are to be eliminated. An effective study of 
child labor, of the sanitary conditions under which multitudes 
of men and women now labor, of the methods employed in a 
struggle for economic supremacy, of the connections between 
industrial and political control, and of the methods by which 
such evils may best be remedied, is a need of any education 
which is to be a factor in bringing industrial democracy out of 
industrial feudalism. But to propose this is to invite the attack 
of those who most profit by the perpetuation of existing con- 
ditions. Yet since this knowledge is an obvious concern of the 
masses, and we have already a political machinery adapted for 
securing control of the masses, this spirit is bound in the future 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 67 

to animate our educational system. In the universities, in spite 
of their seeming closer connection with existing economic forces, 
this scientific spirit has already come into education. As the 
merely propagandist and merely philanthropic spirit give way to 
a scientific spirit, it will find its way also into lower education, 
and finally become a part of the working mental disposition of 
the masses. 

It hardly needs to be said, in closing, that it is a need of 
industrial education in an industrial democracy that its adminis- 
tration be kept unified with that of ordinary public education. 
To make it a separate system, administered by different officers 
having different aims and methods from those of the established 
public school system, is to invite the promotion of a narrow 
trade system which shall in effect make the pecuniary, rather 
than the social and democratic, factors in industry supreme. 
The natural counterpart to free and universal public education 
is a system of universal industry in which there are no idlers or 
shirkers or parasites, and where the ruling motive is interest in 
good workmanship for public ends, not exploitation of others 
for private ends. This is the reason why industrial democracy 
and industrial education should fit each other like hand and 
glove. 



THREE STAGES IN INDUSTRIAL 
EDUCATION' 

Three stages in industrial education: (i) the beginning stage, 
(2) the finding stage, (3) the finishing stage. These are the 
three divisions of a comprehensive scheme of industrial train- 
ing recently outlined by the committee on course of study for 
the Indian schools of the United States. The first stage gives 
elementary general education ; the second continues the general 
education and helps a student to find a vocation suited to his 
taste and ability ; the third fits him more specifically for that 
vocation. "During the first and second periods the training in 
domestic and industrial activities centers around the conditions 
essential to the improvement and proper maintenance of the 

* Editorial Comment. Manual Training and Vocational Education. 17: 
379-80. January, 1916. 



68 SELECTED ARTICLES 

home and farm." "In addition to the regular academic subjects 
boys are required to take practical courses in farming, garden- 
ing, dairying, farm blacksmithing, farm engineering, farm ma- 
sonry, farm painting, and shoe and harness repairing, and ail girls 
arc required to take courses in home cooking, sewing, laundering, 
nursing, poultry raising and kitchen gardening." "Non-essen- 
tials are eliminated. One-half of each day is given to industrial 
training and the other half to academic studies. All effort is 
directed toward training Indian boys and girls for efficient and 
useful lives under the conditions which they must meet after 
leaving school." 



WORK AS RELATED TO MODERN 
INDUSTRIAL CONDITIONS' 

There is an instinct for work, but basically it is the instinct 
for self-preservation and self-perpetuation. Work is our in- 
dividual and collective struggle for existence ; and, out of the 
mental and physical exertion of the struggle to feed, clothe, and 
house us, has evolved our present state of being. The whole 
complex machine of commerce and industry — factory, farm, 
railroad, bank, office, government — has been built for produc- 
tion, construction, distribution, and protection. The present 
machine is the product of slow evolution ; and the effort of the 
centuries to build a machine which will better cope with the 
problem has been the primary cause of our advance in the 
various activities of life. Integrity, honesty, discipline, sound 
health, fair dealing, respect for others' rights — these have come 
from the courageous assumption of one's burden of work, and 
the opposites of these are the results of the desire to dodge the 
burden. 

The Natural Lazv of Work 

And so we have a natural law of work, the substance of 
which is this : Work and you will reach a higher mental devel- 
opment ; cease work and you will degenerate. 

1 From "Education for Industrial Workers," by Herman Schneider. 
Copyright, 1915, by World Book Company, Yonkers-on-Hudson, New York. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 69 

The law can be established scientifically if need be, but it is 
not necessary, for in this case common observation, science, and 
rehgion all agree. Each of us knows he will deteriorate physi- 
cally and mentally if he ceases constructive work, and history 
shows that this is also true of communities, of nations, and of 
civilizations. Our proverbs, sacred and secular, affirm it. The 
cycle of work to wealth, wealth to idleness, idleness to poverty, 
and poverty to work again, is an evidence of inefficiency follow- 
ing inaction. Mental and physical activity are mutually stimula- 
ting; thinking and doing are reciprocal aids. 

Former Alliance of Mental Training and Industry 

Mental training and industry have both been most stable 
when they have been most closely allied ; and until comparatively 
recent years they have been one in fact. Under the old guild and 
apprentice systems, for example, the workers were trained so well 
in the commercial field that industrial education was not a special 
school problem. Work was education. To embark upon an ap- 
prenticeship was serious business ; careful discussion preceded it 
and ample documentary agreements gave guarantees of execution. 
Industrial communities were small, and personal acquaintance 
fostered personal interest. Competition in skillful execution 
furnished a lively stimulus which led to the enthusiastic use of 
head and hand coordinately. Generation by generation there was 
a cumulative mental advancement coupled with refinement of 
manual skill in constructive work. In this manner, even long be- 
fore the days of formal apprenticeship, mankind grew through 
work. 

Changes with Introduction of Factory System 

But there have been two significant changes in the conditions 
under which work is done. 

In the first place, it is only within the past two or three gener- 
ations that mankind has worked in masses within walls. For 
centuries mankind did self-directed work, largely in the open air. 
These were farmers, the seamen, and the forest rangers. As civi- 
lization grew, a constantly increasing minority did self-directed 
work, individually or in small groups, indoors ; these were the 
artisans in the skilled trades, who met the demands of growing 



70 SELECTED ARTICLES 

communities. Then came the great change to the factory system 
through the development of power devices ; this dates virtually 
from the invention of the steam engine. 

In the second place, the industrial worker formerly knew a 
whole job, rather than a part of it; he performed a great variety 
of functions in the completion of his task, instead of endlessly re- 
peating the same operation. The clockmaker made a ivhole 
clock, working individually, and the necessity of working out 
every part's relation to every other part gave the worker a mental 
stimulus, and, therefore, a higher mental development. The 
finished product was all his own ; the desire for self-expression, 
which every man has, found an outlet through his work ; and, 
once having served his thorough apprenticeship, he worked largely 
by self-direction. Under our present highly organized industrial 
conditions the making of a clock is subdivided into a large num- 
ber of operations. Each workman in a clock factory makes piece 
after piece of the same kind principally by feeding material into 
a machine, and why he does it he need not know and usually is 
not told. We are putting the brains into the machine and into 
the management office, and making the workman a purely auto- 
matic adjunct. 

Effect of Different Kinds of Work on Habit Centers and 
Thinking Centers 

Now, we have, broadly speaking, two types of brain centers : 
the lower centers controlling habits, and the higher active think- 
ing centers. If one's work is purely automatic repetition re- 
quiring no initiative, planning or diversion, the habit centers are 
developed and the thinking centers have at best a retarded 
growth. 

In this connection it is necessary to differentiate between 
casually repeated useful habits of daily life which economize 
time, and constantly repeated automatic motions which constitute 
one's major work; the argument is fallacious that, because the 
former are good, so are the latter. The putting on of one's 
shoes is governed by one's habit centers ; when we were learn- 
ing to put on on our shoes the thinking centers were being de- 
veloped. Dressing, eating, walking, boarding a car, opening a 
door are time-saving actions of habit repeated at comparatively 
long intervals, differing widely in their motor forms, and used 
as incidental instruments to a larger self-directed action. There 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 71 

is a vast difference between using many habits several times a 
day as means to self-directed ends and repeating one habit all day 
as an end in itself. The playing of scales on a piano becomes a 
habit to the skilled musician ; he uses it as a means of performing 
a stimulating, energizing, thought-requiring production. It is a 
good and beneficial habit which facilitates and simplifies his per- 
formance. But if he learned the scales merely to repeat them ten 
hours a day, day after day, without meaning and without end, 
his work would become lethargizing and enervating. 

It should be noted, too, that automaticity of itself does not 
impair one's thinking capacities. When we walk, our habit 
centers control the action ; but we can walk and think at the 
same time. The evil of automatic machine-feeding is negative 
rather than positive, in that it requires no constructive exercise 
of the thinking centers, and hence develops only the habit cen- 
ters. There are, however, certain types of automatic work which 
are distinctly injurious because they introduce other deteriorating 
factors. For example, if the work requires that the eyes be 
focused constantly at one place, if the motions of the machine be- 
fore the eyes be a monotonous rhythmic repetition, and if the 
motions of the hands in feeding the material into the machine be 
also rhythmic and monotonous, then a deadening hypnotic effect 
is produced upon the mind ; such is the work of a punch-press 
operator. 

Further, automatic work, in addition to putting the thought 
centers into disuse and producing a lethargizing effect, is re- 
pressive of individuality. There has been developed in each of 
us, through the self-directed work of our ancestors in past 
centuries, a natural instinct for self-expression. Prior to the day 
of subdivided automatic operations the worker had an outlet for 
his self-expression in his work; now, for the automatic worker, 
it must come in his idle hours, and often in forms which lead 
to many of our most vexing sociological problems. Unexpressive 
(or repressive) work is unnatural work, and must incite to 
mental and physical protest. 

Modern Industrial Conditions 

Now, we cannot reverse our present economic order of things. 
Work which does not require mental activity is increasing, and 
will continue to increase for a long time to come. The condition 
is here and philosophical discussion will not remove it. 



^2 SELECTED ARTICLES 



Results of Decrease of Energising and Increase of 
Enervating Work 

The situation, then, sifts down to this : Energizing work is 
decreasing; enervating work is increasing. We are rapidly 
dividing mankind into a staff of mental workers and an army 
of purely physical workers. The physical workers are be- 
coming more and more automatic, with the sure result that their 
minds are becoming more and more lethargic. The work itself 
is not character-building; on the contrary, it is repressive, and, 
when self-expression comes, it is hardly energizing mentally. 
The real menace lies in the fact that in a self-governing indus- 
trial community the minds of the majority are in danger of be- 
coming less capable of sound and serious thought, because of 
lack of continuous constructive exercise while engaged in earn- 
ing a livelihood. 

Laws of the Two Kinds of Work 

It is evident, then, that the general law of labor must be divided 
into two laws ; namely, the law of energizing work, which makes 
for progress, and the law of enervating work, which makes for 
retrogression. Nearly all the work still done in the open air, 
where there is a dependent sequence of operation, involving plan- 
ning on the part of the worker, is energizing work. Specific ex- 
amples may be cited in farm work, railroad work, and the 
building trades. Certain work done indoors, under good condi- 
tions of light and air, is also energizing: for example, the work 
of a toolmaker, a locomotive assembler, and a cabinet maker. 
The enervating work has come through the subdivision of labor 
in factories, so that each worker does one thing over and over 
in the smallest number of cubic feet of space. This type is 
recognizable at once in the routine of the garment worker, the 
punch-press operator, the paper-box maker, and the shoe worker. 
On small, isolated farms, where a certain routine week by week 
has been established by long usage, mental development lags 
and the work may not be as energizing as in certain indoor occu- 
pations. In the main, however, most of the enervating work is 
done indoors. 

Aside from the broader factors, such as climate conditions and 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 73 

racial characteristics, it is safe to say that the morale of a com- 
munity depends upon the kind of work it does. A rural com- 
munity of about twelve thousand people, having clean political 
conditions, a high moral tone, few jarring families, well-kept 
gardens, and a good average of intelligence, is a desirable place, 
from the manufacturer's viewpoint, in which to locate a factory. 
If a manufacturer locates in such a place and employs three 
thousand of the men, women, and children in purely automatic, 
itoisy, high-speed work, the town will change very materially in 
one generation. Its politics will become corrupt, its morals 
lax; its citizenship will lose its former mental stability and fly 
eagerly and earnestly from one spectacular "ism" to another ; its 
families will be on nervous edge, with family discipline gone ; its 
yards and houses will lose their tidiness ; saloons will increase — in 
a word it will become a "factory town." And what was once a 
good community, with a high community efficiency, and therefore, 
a safe place in which to invest money, becomes a town of low 
community efficiency and a constant menace to the industry itself. 
Every detail of the town's life is afFected. Religion lags, while 
the amusement parks thrive on Sunday ; for, since the weekday 
work is repressive, an outlet for pronounced self-expression is 
demanded in the idle hours — or, to put it in another way. Nature 
goes on the defensive. The slowly upbuilt appreciation of the 
fine arts is quickly destroyed, for this cannot grow without har- 
mony, orderly thought, and the desire to express ideals. Respect 
for law diminishes, for the law is put in the same class as an 
electrically wired strike fence. These significant changes are 
not the fault of the people who work; they are logical natural 
products of the work itself. 



INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION' 

This paper contends that an efficient public-school system must 
include adequate provision for vocational training for persons of 
both sexes over fourteen years of age. 

Heretofore we have planned the work of our public schools 
almost entirely with reference to "culture;" we have done very 
little to stimulate a vocational purpose, and less still to provide 

*Fiom article by Paul H. Hanus. Atlantic Monthly. ioi:6o-8. January, y 
1908. 



74 SELECTED ARTICLES 

for the realization of that purpose. In other words, while the 
schools have laid stress on culture as the end of education, they 
have laid almost no stress on preparation for a vocation. We may 
go farther, and say that, not infrequently, the schools have even 
disparaged vocational purposes in the training they give. They 
have been afraid of "utilitarian" aims, and, sometimes, by a 
curiously inadequate conception of their real function, they have 
even measured their own usefulness by the extent to which they 
have kept the distinctly useful out of their work. 

By way of illustration I need only cite the difficulty we have 
had in getting manual training for boys, and sewing and cooking 
for girls, recognized as appropriate school subjects or activities. 
Manual training is not vocational training, to be sure, as will 
be shown later on ; but, whatever manual training may be, its 
bearing on such training is clear. And it was this obvious bear- 
ing on preparation for the vocation of the artisan and the engi- 
neer that caused the first advocates of manual training after our 
Centennial Exposition to urge its claims on the attention of the 
schools. But so strong was the opposition to teaching a utili- 
tarian subject in the public schools that the claims of manual 
training for recognition have been based, until quite recently, 
chiefly on its "psychological" value. I do not wish to belittle the 
psychological value of manual training, but the strongest reason 
for giving it a place in our scheme of public education is that it 
introduces our youth to a sympathetic understanding of the con- 
structive activities which constitute so important a part of con- 
temporary life. It has not been entirely possible to rob manual 
training of its distinctly useful quality in public elementary and 
secondary education, although the attempt has sometimes been 
made. Nevertheless, in many schools it has been pretty 
thoroughly academicized. This is one reason why so few of 
the pupils and graduates bf our manual training schools become 
craftsmen. The manual training, like other school activities, has 
been used largely as a means of "general education" regarded as 
an end in itself or as preparation for further (usually techni- 
cal) education. As for sewing and cooking, they too have been 
urged for their "psychological" value. But there has been more 
speedy recognition of the weightiest reason for giving them a 
place in the schools, — namely, their supreme usefulness, in view 
of contemporary social conditions and of our enormous and in- 
creasing immigrant population. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 75 

It is strange that we should be so reluctant to admit the 
distinctly useful into our scheme of public elementary and 
secondary education — that is, to admit that one of the functions 
of the public schools is to recognize the claims of elementary 
vocational training as entirely legitimate and desirable. For the 
principle of vocational training at the public expense has long 
been recognized in the field of higher education. The state nor- 
mal schools of the country have educated teachers since 1839; 
the state universities have educated teachers, lawyers, doctors, 
druggists, and engineers, and they continue to do so ; and the state 
agricultural colleges give training in agriculture, and often in 
engineering. Massachusetts, though without a state university, 
has long aided technical education by scholarships in the Massa- 
chusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, and the Polytechnic 
Institute in Worcester, and by direct grants of money to those 
institutions. Massachusetts also maintains, partly at public ex- 
pense, three textile schools for the training of textile workers who 
desire to rise in their calling. 

Our elementary schools and our high schools together consti- 
tute, theoretically at least, one continuous educational scheme 
through which a youth, whatever his circumstances in early life 
may be, may secure the elements of general culture ; and through 
which, if his circumstances permit, he may attain, on the basis of 
the preparation secured in school, a college education, or enter 
at once on professional study in nearly all the professional schools 
of the country. We have thus planned our educational scheme 
primarily in the interests of those who have a long educational 
career ahead of them, and who need not therefore give any im- 
mediate attention to preparation for a life pursuit. 

Nevertheless, it is well known that the greater mass of our 
children and youth are obliged to leave school at the end of the 
grammar-school period, or when they have attained the upper 
limit of the compulsory school age — fourteen years, in most 
states. That is to say, the public-school system in which we take 
a just pride, as now planned, does not reach the great majority 
of our youth during the critical period of adolescence. This is 
the period when life aims begin to have a serious and lasting im- 
portance ; when the child becomes a youth ; when the habits 
formed rapidly acquire permanence; when the plasticity of 
earlier years gives place to stability. And because this is so, 
what happens to him then is likely to permanently shape his fu- 
ture. Yet during this period we send the great majority of our 



75 SELECTED ARTICLES 

youth into the world without further systematic educational influ- 
ence, and usually without any comprehension of the serious pur- 
poses of life, or training in the endeavor to realize them. 

The question which we have to answer is : What becomes 
of the great majority of these young people who enter their active 
life work at the early age of fourteen, with no preparation save 
that offered by the general education of the elementary schools? 
Some inquiry was made into this question in Massachusetts two 
years ago, and it was found that there are probably no less than 
twenty-five thousand boys and girls between the ages of fourteen 
and sixteen who are not in school. They are at work in various 
kinds of juvenile occupations, or they are idle. The boys become 
elevator boys, errand boys, oflice boys, they drive a wagon, or do 
other work in which they learn nothing, in which no demand is 
made on them for the application of what they learned in school ; 
and consequently, by the time they are seventeen, eighteen, 
twenty or more years of age they have an earning capacity but 
little greater than that which they had when they first left school. 
And a similar fate overtakes the girls. Moreover, the unfortu- 
nate education of shifting experience and environment during 
these years does much to destroy both the substance and the 
spirit of the education which they receive when in school. The 
result is that at the threshold of citizenship the great majority of 
these young people are actually more ignorant than they were 
when they left school. They are sophisticated, to be sure ; but 
they have seldom acquired the characteristics of substantial man- 
hood and womanhood; and, as I have just said, economically they 
are but little more valuable than they were when they began to 
work. They have not become increasingly valuable "economic 
units." And the reason, of course, is that in the unskilled pur- 
suits which they have followed it was impossible to acquire the 
character, knowledge, and skill which would give them an earning 
capacity proportionate to their years. 

It is clear that the most valuable resources which any state has 
are its young men (and young women). It is clear that the 
greatest waste is the waste of these resources. The failure to 
develop them to their fullest capacity is an irredeemable failure. 
Boys are not wanted in the industries until they are sixteen years 
of age, and in some industries they are not wanted until they are 
past seventeen. If, therefore, between the ages of fourteen and 
seventeen these boys are allowed to drift, if they go about from 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION ^^ 

one occupation to another in which they do not develop such 
capacity for mechanical pursuits as they have, or if they remain 
in school and the academic traditions prevalent there turn them 
away from the trades, as is not uncommon, they too commonly go 
to swell the ranks of the unskilled; and as they grow older, of 
the dissatisfied, the stranded, and the dependent. 

Although boys are not wanted in the industries until they are 
sixteen years of age, the years from fourteen to sixteen are, 
nevertheless, exceedingly valuable years for education — an edu- 
cation that teaches them the significance of a skilled vocation, 
and that helps them to explore their capacities and their tastes 
for the vocations in which skilled labor is needed. These years 
are, therefore, extremely valuable for purposes of industrial edu- 
cation. What the nature of that education might be I shall de- 
scribe later on. I shall first sketch the difficulty which boys now 
find in learning a trade without special preparation for it. 

Under the specialized condition of modern industry it is 
usually exceedingly difficult for a man to learn his trade in the 
shop, and sometimes impossible. The old apprenticeship system, 
which enabled a man to learn the whole of a trade, is dead. It is 
well known that to-day the man in the shop works at a part of the 
product with a given machine, and knows little of what is done 
toward the completion of that product by other men and other 
machines. He is a narrow specialist, working day by day at the 
same kind of work under precisely the same conditions, the ma- 
chine requiring but little exercise of thought or ingenuity. 
Usually he knows little or nothing about the machine itself. The 
shop has machinists who repair the machines. Under such cir- 
cumstances a man loses the habit of thinking, since no demand is 
made on him for thought. It is true that all men have not "all 
the conveniences for thinking," even if they were called upon to 
think, but under the exigencies of the modern shop the habit 
of thinking is rarely developed. This specialization in modern in- 
dustry is, however, highly profitable to the manufacturer. It is 
one of the reasons why goods can be produced so quickly and so 
cheaply. It is, therefore, like other modern developments, a 
condition which will survive. 

In a shop if a man wishes to learn his trade, he has, as I said 
a moment ago, great difficulty in attaining his end. 

What happens, then, to our ambitious young man who persists 
in his intention to learn his trade? He quits, and applies for 



78 SELECTED ARTICLES 

work at another shop, askmg for work at another machine, say- 
ing that he is, let us say, a lathe hand. Meanwhile, he has 
naturally become somewhat familiar with a lathe and knows 
something about the working of it. Shortly after he begins his 
work as a lathe hand, the foreman comes around to see how he is 
getting along, looks at the work, and says, "You can't do this 
work ; you can go." Naturally the man has to go to another 
shop, and there the process is repeated with the possibility, how- 
ever, of a longer stay. This procedure an ambitious man will 
continue until he has made himself, by repeated changes and brief 
periods of practice, a lathe hand and can do satisfactory work. 
I have heard of one man who repeated this process nineteen times 
in his endeavor to learn his trade. It won't do to talk to such a 
man about the dignity of labor. By such a procedure a man may 
require six or seven years to learn his trade ; and even then he 
comomnly learns only the processes of the trade and not the 
theoretical foundations of it. The mathematics, drawing, sci- 
ence, and the rest, applicable to his particular trade, are inacces- 
sible to him. He has little opportunity to develop "industrial in- 
telligence" and the "shop and business ethics" that grow out of 
insight into and consequent interest in his work, and the sense of 
responsibility born of conscious resources as a workman and a 
man. Consequenth', although he is better equipped for steady 
work and for possible promotion to a foremanship than the ordi- 
nary specialist, his further progress is obstructed, if not pre- 
vented, just at the point where he could become most valuable to 
himself and to his employer. 

It must be remembered that the great mass of young workmen' 
are not ambitious and persistent enough to follow so difficult a 
road in learning their trades. The result is that most of them 
fall by the way ; they become narrow workmen who can handle a 
single machine only, and whose prospects of an upward career in 
their trades are consequently very meagre. 

Now let us follow the body of ambitious workmen whom I 
have described as persisting against tremendous odds in learning 
their trades so that they can be useful in any part of the shop, 
and, if possible, rise to the grade of foreman. Such men consti- 
tute an army of workers who are going from one factory to an- 
other, "stealing their trades," as the phrase is. These men spend 
too many of the most valuable years of their lives in overcoming 
obstacles to a career of usefulness— years that should represent 
steady progress in that career. Moreover, they cannot become 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 79 

attached to a locality, and the steadying and inspiring sense of 
usefulness to a single employer or manufacturing concern cannot 
be realized. 

Many manufacturers have encouraged their employees to seek 
instruction by correspondence, and the extent to which our 
artisans avail themselves of such instruction is remarkable. For 
example, out of seventeen hundred employees in a well-known es- 
tablishment, three hundred were, last year, enrolled in correspond- 
ence courses. This is decidedly creditable to American workmen, 
and it is not discreditable to the correspondence schools. But the 
disadvantages of instruction by correspondence only are great 
and obvious. Moreover, since a considerable number of those 
who enroll in correspondence courses do not, for various reasons, 
continue them, a considerable part of the money paid for such 
courses is wasted. They do, however, afford the sole available 
means to many persistent and ambitious men, to secure the theo- 
retical instruction on which their upward career depends. Be- 
sides the correspondence schools, the Y. M. C. A. and other phil- 
anthropies offer some opportunities for industrial education to 
men already employed in the trades. Public schools for trade in- 
struction, aside from the public evening drawing-schools, are very 
rare. 

It may seem odd that under such circumstances the manufac- 
turers themselves have not more frequently established schools in 
connection with their establishments for the training of appren- 
tices. But it is clear that such schools are expensive, if they are 
in the interests of the workmen as well as of the employer. And 
hence only the largest manufacturers can undertake such appren- 
tice schools anyway. There are a few such schools ; but generally 
the manufacturer prefers to employ the man who already knows 
one machine. He gets his foremen from other .shops, or from 
Europe ; or he may try to train the foremen he needs in his own 
shop, usually with many disappointing experiences. 

Nothing is clearer, however, than that the means hitherto em- 
ployed are inadequate to meet the demand for skilled labor. Man- 
ufacturers in all parts of the country declare that if they 
could find the skilled help which they need, they could double 
their plants and hence largely increase or double their output, and 
that they never have as many foremen as they need. On every 
hand the need of skilled labor is deplored, and yet we have done 
and are doing comparatively little to meet this need. 
, There is a specious American complacency which stands in the 



8o SELECTED ARTICLES 

way of the proper development of our industry and commerce. 
The remarkable prosperity of the United States is due chiefly 
to three causes : the great abundance of our raw materials, our 
ingenuity in the invention of machinery, and our genius for com- 
mercial combinations. Not one of these three causes, however, 
can be looked upon as a permanent cause of success. Great in- 
roads are being made on our raw materials, and some of them are 
even now fairly well used up. Labor-saving machinery and cheap 
production cannot be a monopoly of the United States, for this 
machinery is obtainable the world over. American commercial 
combinations are being imitated everywhere. It has never yet 
been shown that the cause of American success in foreign markets 
was due to the quality of the goods produced. In that respect we 
have not yet made much progress, and until wc do we are, of 
course, at the mercy of those who are able to use all the resources 
which we possess and, in addition to use them to better advantage. 



PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL NEED 
FOR CONSTRUCTIVE HAND WORK 

It seems almost necessary to preface a discussion of the psy- 
chological need for any subject in the school by a comparison 
of the part psychology has in the past played in the determina- 
tion of the work of education with the function assigned to it 
by schoolmen today. The great educational reformers — Rous- 
seau, Pestalozzi, Herbart, and Froebel — were convinced that the 
fundamental need in education was that it should be based on 
a sound psychology. So thoroly were they possessed with this 
point of view that they looked to psychology to determine not 
only the rAethod but also the aim of education. The problem 
of the schoolmaster they conceived to be a development of that 
which is potential within the child. In this attitude they were 
protesting against an endeavor to enforce upon him a number 
of disagreeable tasks more or less remotely connected with the 
busines of life. Even Herbart, with his emphasis on the impor- 
tance of the external process of instruction, agreed that the 
aim of education is "the harmonious development of all the 

1 By Ernest N. Henderson. National Education Association, Proceed- 
ings. 1910:666-75. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 8i 

powers" or, according to his phraseology, the development of 
"many sided interest." Education according to this view aims 
at personal culture, at realizing the self, at bringing to light the 
possibilities that God implanted in the child ; these are all methods 
of stating the purpose of education which leave to the psychol- 
ogist the problem of determining its specific character. For 
who but he whose study concerns the nature of the mind can be 
expected to know its potentialities? 

The theory that psychology should determine not only the 
method but also the aim of instruction possessed the minds of 
the earlier advocates of manual training in the United States. 
Among the important characteristics of the child is the fact that 
he has a body and is capable of doing an enormous number of 
things with it. Moreover, he is intensely interested in doing 
many of these things. For a long time the physical activities are 
rather more in evidence than the mental ones, and all of the 
instincts point toward them. Soon the instinct of constructive- 
ness appears, fashioning the form of many games. The teacher, 
alert to the potentialities of the child, marks the power and the 
instinct to use the hand, and cultivates it to insure that perfectly 
developed man toward whom his task is conceived to direct it- 
self. 

It is evident, therefore, that, from the standpoint of aiming 
to prepare its pupils for efficient living, the modern school is 
more and more compelled to take into account both constructive 
work and the study of industry as a fundamentally important 
group of subjects. There is a social need for such work. But 
in the endeavor to fit it into the course of study difficulties 
arise. Since the work is commonly recognized as vocational, 
many parents see no need of it for children who are not ex- 
pected to pursue the callings to which it is supposed to lead. 
This is especially true of the constructive work, the survival 
of "manual training." It finds difficulty in making its way into 
the earlier part of the curriculum, which is necessarily the same 
for all. To effect this entrance and to maintain its ground, it 
has been compelled to assume generalized forms that seem to 
constitute integral parts in the culture of everyone. Moreover, 
it has been tempted to defend these forms not on account of its 
somwhat remote utility, but rather on the ground of the older 
psychological arguments of discipline and all-round develop- 
ment. If these arguments are, as seems inevitable, to be aban- 



82 SELECTED ARTICLES 

doned, it is evident that the elementary school must find and 
teach that phrase of industrial life that is suited to children and 
useful to all and cease to rely on the cultivation thru manual 
training of such general powers as accuracy, moral rectitude, 
co-ordination of eye and brain and hand, etc. 

Many considerations conspire to make wise the postpone- 
ment of the more purely vocational part of constructive work 
and the study of industry until at least the dawn of adolescence. 
It is specialized work and to introduce such training early seems 
bad for at least three reasons: (i) It encourages differentiation 
before the child has revealed himself to others or has discovered 
his own tastes and aptitudes. (2) It initiates specialization 
before a child has obtained the general foundations of his cul- 
ture and while he is still immature. Many declare that this leads 
to prematuration and to arrested development. (3) It tries 
to teach children what can be learned effectively only by older 
persons and especially under the pressure of practical need. 
This results in a waste of time. 

The problem of constructive work and of the study industry 
has thus very quickly resolved itself into one of determining 
on the one hand the elements of general culture and on the other 
those of specialization that these subjects involve. This analy- 
sis completed, the two factors can be assigned to different parts 
of the school program. The special training can well be post- 
poned until the work of the elementary school has been finished. 
The general culture would need to be properly correlated with 
the age of the pupils and general arrangements of studies in 
the school. Herein the issue comes to involve questions of the 
psychological needs of childhood. 

Before taking up these questions, however, let us note a little 
more carefully the nature of that general social need at the 
behest of which the studies in question should be introduced 
into the elementary school. It is evident that their general util- 
ity is not identical with what it has been in the past. With the 
development of industry into more and more elaborate originiza- 
tions of highly specialized activities, the all-round manual skill 
so important in both men and women a generation ago is ceas- 
ing to be an especially valuable source of efficiency. On the 
other hand economic interdependence is becoming greater, and 
it is growing increasingly important for each to know many 
things in order to keep his activities socially and vocationally in 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 83 

efficient co-operation with the activities of others in different 
walks of life. The substitution of economic interdependence for 
economic independence has made it necessary for each, if he be 
not to descend into the position of a mere tool of the social 
machine, to be taken up or laid aside at the will of those who 
use him, to understand the relation of his vocation to others 
well enough to exert a controlling influence in reference to its 
status and its development. He must be able not only to re- 
adjust himself to changes in his vocation, but to assist in the 
work of readjusting his vocation to the varying conditions of 
community life. To do this he needs a general knowledge of 
many vocations. The world of industry in general becomes of 
importance to him as well as his own specialty. 

It is to the tasks of laying the foundations for a general 
knowledge of industrial life that the elementary school must 
address itself. In this work mere manual training becomes 
subordinated to the study of industry, as a method rather than 
an aim of instruction. The group of subjects becomes an intro- 
duction to a fundamental phase of economic life and serves a 
utility quite as definite as that of instruction in the three R's or 
in geography. Culture having this general aim may well continue 
after the study of specific vocations has begun. The more effec- 
tively it is mastered the more surely, we may suppose, will the 
trained man be master of his vocation rather than its slave. 

Whatever may be the factors in industrial intelligence, it is 
evident that one is a knowledge of the general facts of eco- 
nomic and industrial life such as enables the individual to see 
clearly the relation of his own vocation thereto. Upon such 
knowledge is founded sound judgment as to the rights and 
duties of each craft as well as of its possibilities and necessities. 

We turn now to the psychological problem — the problem of 
adjusting constructive work and the study of industry to the 
nature of the child. It may be said of both, and especially of 
the former, that nature has left the schoolmaster little to do. 
Children inherit so great an interest in such activity that it, so 
far from needing aid in order to be made enjoyable, constitutes 
one of the most effective means of arousing interest in any sub- 
ject that can be taught thru its assistance. Those educational 
reformers, who have striven to reorganize education, making it 
more interesting and more in accord with the nature of the child 
have usually been pronounced advocates of constructive work. 



84 SELECTED ARTICLES 

We may distinguish between two general uses for which it has 
been employed, (a) to give motive for school work otherwise 
meaningless and uninteresting, and (b) to render more posi- 
tive and lasting the results of instruction. 

As a means of motivation constructive work possesses the 
following advantages: (i) It appeals to the love of activity, 
especially physical activity so prominent in children. To younger 
children the mere making of things seems worth while apart 
from any uses to which the product may be out. (2) It appeals 
to the primitive interest in the concrete, that which represents 
processes and results easily apprehended by both sight and 
touch and the muscular sense. In such material young children 
are absorbed, and it is astonishing how little general meaning 
or value is necessary to insure their interest, provided the mate- 
rial with which they are working be of this tangible character. 
(3) Constructive work connects itself with occupations and 
products the utility of which is seen illustrated in the every- 
day life about the child. Indeed they are about the first utilities 
to be grasped by the child's mind. 

When we turn to the value of constructive work as a means 
of strengthening the results of instruction we distinguish two 
fundamental advantages: (i) It furnishes one of the easiest 
and most effective ways of applying the principle that learning 
should, or, as the "functional" psychologist puts it, must be by 
doing. (2) It teaches through the application of principles to 
a sort of practice more nearly similar to that of the life-situa- 
tions in which these principles are expected to function than is 
that of much of the school. 

The newer psychology takes the ground that we do not at- 
tend, do not discriminate, and so are not conscious, except when 
this is necessary to bring about readjustment between reaction 
and stimuli. Learning is always connected with the reorganiza- 
tion of our modes of behavior. Apart from constructive work 
the school presents only one form of physical activity of great 
importance. This is that of language either oral or written, and 
the great aim of such activity is to come into adjustment with 
certain standard words, notably those of the teacher. Now while 
such activity must always remain one of the most fruitful oc- 
casions for learning inasmuch as nothing can vie with the social 
situation in offering emergencies for readjustment it is exceed- 
ing valuable not to be limited in school doing and learning to 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 85 

this sort of thing. The addition of the endeavor to manipulate 
materials supplies a characteristically different sort of emer- 
gency. In adjusting himself to other minds the child is dealing 
with persons who are continually by their own efforts furthering 
or hindering his endeavors. In either event, the condition of 
dependence is emphasized. The child is led to consider success 
or failure to be a matter of the point of view of others ; and 
this point of view may be and all too frequently is dependent 
upon circumstance and mood, inaccurate, uncertain, transitory, 
unjust, or absurdly compliant and easy rather than fixed, true, 
and inevitable. The methods of dealing with minds vary from 
cajolery and domineering to persuasion and the appeal to the 
sense of right. In any case they differ greatly from the dealing 
with mere phj^sical materials, where there is one law, the mastery 
of which is the only method of securing results, and where the 
child can have no thought except that of simple direct control. 
It is an unquestionable addition to the resources of the child 
that he has accustomed himself to deal intelligently with phys- 
ical materials as well as with the human minds. 

Moreover much that is learned in the school is intended to 
be applied not in the control of men, but in the manipulation 
of material. In that event constructive work in the school offers 
the only method by which the principles can there be applied as 
they would be in life. That they should get this sort of school 
application is fundamentally important. Facts learned in order 
to be recited are, by a simple principle of recall, not apt to be 
remembered where the circumstances and the emergencies are so 
vastly different as in the case of school questioning on the one 
hand and a workshop on the other. The more nearly the school 
environment corresponds to that of life in general, the more 
likely it is that the ideas learned in the former will be applied 
in the latter. The identity of principle is not sufficient with 
most minds to overcome the effect of diversity in all other asso- 
ciations, and the mind recalls many things, but not that far- 
away bit of school learning which is the one thing useful. It 
may therefore safely be said that whatever is to be applied to 
problems in construction should be learned wherever possible in 
connection with such problems. 

Very much the same analysis that has been made of the 
psychological need for constructive work in the school applies 
to the study of industry. In fact it deals with that phase of 



86 SELECTED ARTICLES 

life to aid in the study of which constructive work finds its 
principal use. Connecting itself with interest in and imitation 
of the simpler forms of adult life, it leads gradually to a desire 
to participate in the work of the world. It is to be hoped that 
the constructive work and the study of industry in the elemen- 
tary school will ultimately be of such a character that when the 
pupil reaches the age at which the activities of adult life make 
their appeal, he will be able to make a wise choice in reference 
to them, and be already advanced in an appreciable measure to- 
ward the goal of his special vocation. 

It is especially in connection with relating school work to 
the realities of life that the study of industry becomes impor- 
tant. The public in a democratic and commercial and industrial 
community are apt to find reality rather more in such work than 
in science and art, literature and philosophy. The children of 
such a public are prone to discover in the study of industry 
something that connects the systematic and especially the formal 
work of the school with the real problems of life. Under these 
conditions the school finds this study a means of putting motive 
into many contributory studies and of securing such a setting 
for its teaching as will make likely its application at least to 
the utilitarian pursuits of life. 

The problem of motive becomes especially difficult in the 
later years of the elemntary school. Children at this time pass, 
so far as regards their outlook upon life, into a distinctly differ- 
ent phase of development. We can bring this out by describing 
the earlier phases. The young child is a creature of impulse and 
imagination, absorbed in doing or thinking that which is im- 
mediately suggested to him. Reflection is gradually forced upon 
him. The period from eight to twelve is a critical age, an age 
in rivalry in games of the felt presence of social criticism and 
coercion in reference to all the physical and mental activities 
that the child puts forth. Under this pressure he becomes reflec- 
tive. He subjects imagination to standards, the standards of 
social acceptability of truth, of propriety. Such standards vary 
with individuals and social groups. The teacher does not always 
agree with the parents, much less with the man on the street. 
Among the children groups arise on the basis of difference in 
ideals. Later on the adolescent discovers that among these war- 
ring views of life he must choose one for himself to be his own. 
He arrives at the age of independence and becomes himself a 
critic, declaring his freedom from coercion. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 87 

It is at this age that the rate of elimination of pupils becomes 
portentous. The reasons that cause children to leave school 
are very numerous, but unquestionably a very large proportion, 
at least a majority, give up because they cannot feel that it will 
repay the sacrifice of effort or expense or both that it involves. 
Oher reasons are for the most part contributory. This one is 
fundamental. There are two classes of children to whom school 
work does not seem worth while. One of these consists of 
pupils who can and do get on well in the school but find the 
activities on the outside more interesting and profitable. The 
other is composed of pupils who do not prosper in school. Such 
children naturally grow discontented. No one can be expected 
to regard as worth while for him that which he is incapable of 
doing. Moreover, in such a competitive atmosphere as a school 
merely to pass means practically to fail. 

Now it is evident that just as constructive work may offer 
the motives of activity and the making of concrete things to 
younger children, so to older ones it, especially when combined 
with a study of industry, will seem worth while to many of 
both these two classes of the ordinarily eliminated. For those 
who fail in the older studies of the school, the constructive 
work may offer a field for success. For both classes it should 
constitute a main part of the later school program. As an 
integral part of the preparation for life, it deserves a place 
proportionate to the number of those who need such preparation 
and the amount of such preparation it is possible and desirable 
to give. 

We have reached again from the standpoint of the study of 
the developing nature of the child the issue of specialized voca- 
tional training. It is evident that the general training of the 
earlier years of the elementary school should be what is deemed 
necessary to all and what introduces those who are to specialize 
in some form of industry to their work of specific preparation. 
We have not, however, as yet considered sufficiently the problem 
of the initial steps in differentiation or specialization. This prob- 
lem is in our democratic system one among the most difficult and 
important that we face. It is a question whether the problem of 
determining what the vocation of the man shall be is not more 
difficult and exacting than that of preparing him for what has 
been chosen. The European systems of education, which have not 
been burdened to such an extent as our own with the ideals of 
democracy, have found it easy to engraft vocational instruction 



88 SELECTED ARTICLES 

upon an elementary system intended only for those destined by 
birth to some form of industry. In our boasted continuous ladder 
of schools, where the elementary school leads into the high school 
and the high school into the college, the introduction of special 
training in industry has not been so simple. It means differentia- 
tion. It has seemed like cutting off from the children who took it 
the opportunity for such careers as were limited largely to those 
who had completed the higher course. We have felt that educa- 
tion shall give to all an equal chance to attain any distinction in 
life. Hence we have clung to a system associated with the train- 
ing of leaders, even tho such a system may be poorly enough 
adapted to the education of anyone else. 

It is likely that we shall find our way out thru a change in our 
conception of leadership on the one hand and a discovery that our 
time-honored method of training any sort of a leader needs ex- 
tensive modification, if not revolution, on the other. It is not 
however, the purpose of this chapter to discuss these changes. 
We may confine ourselves to the crying need for a system of 
education that shall provide training adequate, in the first place, 
to enable a fairly intelligent choice of a calling to be made and, 
in the second place, to prepare for whatever may be selected. We 
are fully alive to the need for the second of these advances. It 
is doubtful whether our educational leaders have been in general 
adequately impressed with the need for a system of school work 
the primary purpose of which should be to enable the pupil to 
find himself and the teacher to give him intelligent advice on the 
matter. 

From the point of view of the development of the child, the 
age at which this process of experimentation toward a calling 
should be definitely initiated corresponds fairly well with the 
beginning of the seventh school year. Its external symptom is 
the high rate of elimination from school at that time, and its 
internal sign is the unrest, the questioning of values, the begin- 
ning of "storm and stress" that characterize the commencement 
of the age of independence, of adolescence. It would seem that 
at this time the secondary phase of education should begin. 

There has been in our country some trouble in defining just 
what secondary education is. The demarcation between it and 
the elementary school on the one hand and higher education on 
the other has been one of years and of studies rather than of 
general function. There has been no clear reason except custom 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 89 

and a felt convenience for having secondary education begin and 
end where it does. It is possible, however, to distinguish three 
well marked functions of education, which might be assigned to 
elementary, secondary, and higher education, respectively, with- 
out much destructive readjustment of our present system. Ele- 
mentary education concerns the essentials and the fundamentals. 
It is the education that precedes any attempt at differentiation. 
With the development of the child up into the age where such 
differentiation becomes necessary an epoch of experimentation 
sets in. The main purpose of the education of this period should 
be to afford an adequate basis of experience for the choice of a 
specialty and to guide the process of selection. Such education . 
we may call secondary. When once it has been determined as 
well as is practically possible what the child should do, the time 
for higher education, that is, for a special preparation for a voca- 
tion, has appeared. 

On this plan we should not have a system in which, while ele- 
mentary education is supposed to be for all, secondary education 
is only for a few, and higher education for the very few; but 
each phase of the work would find representation in the educa- 
tion of all or most pupils. At the beginning of the seventh grade 
the work of experimentation might well begin. A large number 
of children have by this time demonstrated their unfitness for 
what might be called a professional career. For them the severer 
studies, involving the power of mind to grasp and utilize the 
abstract ideas and processes involved in mathematics, science, 
language, etc., are not profitable. They should be given experi- 
mental work along the line of industrial training supplemented 
by concrete cultural work in literature, civics, geography, and 
science, such as adapts them for the duties of citizenship and so- 
cial life. We may tentatively suggest that two years of such 
work put these children in the position of making an intelligent 
choice of a vocational school in which to complete their educa- 
tion. 

At the beginning of the seventh school year those whose 
mental traits make it desirable might enter schools where the older 
type of secondary work is prominent. But we might expect that 
continually new revelations will be made in regard to the talents 
and tastes of the pupils, and that little by little those who are 
unable to do the work that leads to the higher professions will be 
selected out to enter vocational schools that prepare primarily for 



90 SELECTED ARTICLES 

intermediate positions in industry, commerce, the civil service, 
etc. The period of secondary education would on the theory pro- 
posed, extend until the choice of a vocation has been made on the 
basis of sufficient experience. The knowledge necessary to make 
such a choice is of necessity more extensive, the more advanced 
the vocation. Properly speaking, the secondary school would in- 
clude the present liberal college course. 

The characteristic feature of the secondary school on this 
theory is the emphasis upon experimentation and selection. In 
such a school the experimental subject would be especially prom- 
inent. This may be defined as a subject studied primarily for the 
sake of finding the extent of its appeal to the powers and interest 
of the student. Experimental studies therefore should not be 
elective but prescribed, for their function is to compel, as it were, 
the student to explore the field of human thought and endeavor 
adequately before he is permitted to settle upon his peculiar 
specialty. 

An adequate range of experimentation would involve the sec- 
ondary but by no means unimportant gain of a broad outlook 
upon life. Thus the student will be getting his liberal culture to 
a great extent while he is engaged in the process of selecting his 
vocation. The study of industry and constructive work would 
thus constitute factors not only in the elementary but also in the 
secondary education of every student. All children would have 
enough of them to know and to do the things that they concern 
in so far as they enter into the life of it all. Every student 
should have enough more such study to enable him, no matter 
what his calling may be, to understand and to sympathize and co- 
operate with those whose life work lies in these fields. The 
process of differentiation initiated by the completion of the ele- 
mentary course would still leave to all some further work along 
such lines both for experimentation and culture. We may assume 
that when the experimental work has been completed the needs of 
culture will have been in most cases fairly well satisfied. 

The current usage assigns vocational schools of the trade- 
school or technical school type to secondary rather than to higher 
education, where they would be placed according to the classifi- 
cation just suggested. This arises historically because such work 
is usually taken in lieu of the secondary training in the older sort. 
The classification made in the preceding discussion aims to pro- 
vide a basis for the determination of the character and function 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 91 

of constructive work and the study of industry as we go from the 
age of elementary education on into that of experimentation to- 
ward a vocation and further into that of specialized preparation 
for the one selected. 



SPECIAL NEED OF THE NE'ER-DO-WELL' 

The opportunities, interests, and duties of life to-day for the 
modern boy or girl living in an industrial community and for 
those that lived in rural communities of fifty years ago are not 
the same. Since our public-school system is the institution as- 
signed by society to prepare our boys and girls for life, it must 
accordingly change, add, or modify the traditional course of 
study to meet these additional educational needs. This means that 
the school must supervise the child during the whole educational 
process, — when the child enters school, the training provided for 
him, the age at which he goes to work, the character of the work 
he performs, and his proper training and guidance while he is 
working, and until he reaches the threshold of manhood or 
womanhood, at eighteen or nineteen years of age. 

The traditional course of study must be changed from the first 
to the last grade so that it will educate the whole boy and girl of 
this day. Special attention should be devoted to the aptitudes of 
the great mass of children who are motor-minded and who must 
be reached through the manual and objective methods of teach- 
ing. A manual-training class should be attached to every school 
in this country. Children as soon as they go to school should be 
taught to use their hands, as the father and mother did in the 
rural communities a generation ago. It is very important that 
they should be taught when they are young. When a motor- 
minded pupil arrives at the age of adolescence, prevocational 
classes should be established so that his interest in academic 
work will be continued by correlating it with his vocational in- 
terests, — that is, practical work. The aim of all this will be to 
make every boy and girl, when he reaches the age of fourteen, 
know how to use his hands with some degree of skill, to be 
"handy" in addition to the ordinary academic work. For the 

* From "Education of the Ne'er-do-well." p. 25-31. By William H. 
Dooley. Copyright 19 16, by William H. Dooley. 



92 SELECTED ARTICLES 

majority this will not necessitate any more hours of school work. 
We have evidence that, by reducing the time alloted to academic 
work and substituting manual work, the mind is stimulated. By 
so doing, the child will not, as soon as the law allows, leave 
school with that feeling of repulsion that is so prevalent to-day. 

Manufacturers find that it is necessary to employ juveniles to 
maintain a scale of wages adjusted to the skill required and the 
amount of work performed in a plant. To illustrate: If a manu- 
facturer pays a person one dollar and twenty-five cents a day for 
placing empty spools on a spinning frame in place of full ones, 
who then rests a half-hour, it causes dissatisfaction among the 
other help who work continuously for one dollar and twenty-five 
cents a day. This is one of the important reasons why juvenile 
help is employed in our factories. We sometimes think that child 
labor is cheap and that that is the reason it is employed. Cheap- 
ness of labor is not sufiicient to attain industrial success. Cheap 
hands must be taught, and taught well, or work in the end will 
cost more than that of more experienced hands who possess 
greater skill and have acquired more understanding of their 
work. 

The problem before us in regard to child labor is to retain 
our industrial supremacy, our present industrial organization of 
highly specialized work, and to develop the whole boy and girl 
so that we may have successful men and women with industrial 
habits to live useful and happy lives. This cannot be done by 
groups of social workers in this country attempting to tear down 
our industrial system by forcing unjust legislation on the com- 
munity, such as compulsory full-time education for children up to 
sixteen years of age or over. In spite of the many assertions 
from social leaders to the contrary, the experience of educators 
in this country and abroad who have made a study of education 
in large factory centers leads to the conclusion that it is a positive 
harm to retain the great mass of children between the age of 
fourteen to sixteen in school on a full-time basis. These children 
have neither the mental equipment nor the interest to devote so 
much time to academic work. They have descended from ances- 
tors who mature early in life and have intensely practical ideas, 
and therefore should develop useful industrial habits during the 
early part of adolescence. 

Our social and industrial system is a growth, and we are at 
the present time passing through a period of change in it, the like 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 93 

of which has never been experienced in any equal space of time 
during the world's history. Any attempt to degrade our factory 
system, particularly the textile industry, which employs practically 
two-thirds of the children that have left school as soon as the law 
allows, by saying, "It is ignorance on the part of parents who 
allow the child to enter the mill or factory, and that neither 
power nor advantage is gained by entering the industry at an 
early age, and the child who does enter associates himself with 
our most undesirable population," is detrimental to the child and 
to organized industry. 

All this means readjustments of our social institutions, par- 
ticularly the educational system. The school and factory must 
work hand in hand. The school must supplement the factory in 
such a way as to overcome the deadening effect of highly special- 
ized work, and at the same time give a training that will develop 
the child so that when he has passed his usefulness in that juven- 
ile work he may have the training and intelligence to enter other 
lines of work. 

In order to do this effectively, we must provide for working 
girls and youths opportunities on a part-time system, an educa- 
tion which will meet with their interests and tastes, assisting each 
to become proficient in some line of skilled work that he may 
enter after passing his usefulness in the so-called "blind-alley" 
positions. 

The educational training on a part-time basis for the boy in 
the so-called skilled occupations, where there are sufficient oppor- 
tunities for him to remain all his life, should be for greater effi- 
ciency and civic betterment. For the boy in the so-called unskilled 
and factory occupations, where there is a lack of opportunity for 
further advancement, there should be trade training, so that he 
may receive during the years from fourteen to eighteen the be- 
ginning of a skilled trade, so that he may be accepted, at the end 
of his "f|ead-end" employment, into one of the skilled trades as 
a ii&iri-di beginner. 

For the girls in skilled vocations, the training must be for 
greater efficiency, a supplementary trade training in case of 
seasonable employments and a training in housekeeping. Since 
women have more or less to do with the home, it is doubtful if 
there is a more effective system of education than housekeeping. 
It will bring both health and happiness to the home. On account 
of the unsatisfactory environment of both home and neighbor- 



94 SELECTED ARTICLES 

hood, the school must assume also the burden of looking after 
the physical as well as the mental development of the child. Dur- 
ing the school session, organized games and physical exercise 
should be taught. In this manner it is possible to continue the 
interest of the child in school work, to conserve and increase his 
knowledge to meet daily needs. In addition the school should 
follow up the boys and girls while they are working and give 
them helpful advice. Vocational advisers should assist and direct 
children in selecting vocations and while attending compulsory 
part-time school. Intelligent selection of an occupation is the 
result of intelligent preparation. We cannot expect young people 
to find themselves vocationally without furnishing them with raw 
material for thoughtful selection. Our public-school system 
should audit our social and industrial accounts and publish the 
opportunities available to young people, that they may choose 
their life-work scientifically, and in this way reduce our scrap- 
heap of unskilled labor to a minimum. 

"Blind-alley" jobs will then become ports of entry into more 
skilled and profitable positions. 



SOME SOCIOLOGICAL PHASES OF THE 

MOVEMENT FOR INDUSTRIAL 

EDUCATION' 

To one who studies the present movement for vocational edu- 
cation, and especially that phase of it which we designate "indus- 
trial education," the conviction becomes more firmly fixed that its 
impulse springs from those profound forces which seem to be 
impelling a general social advance and which are dominated by 
the desire to secure for the less prosperous half of the population 
a larger share in the good things of life. 

Representatives of this less prosperous half, to bring this 
about, are working for the establishment of minimum-wage 
boards, old-age pensions, industrial insurance, employers' liability 
laws, and adequate education for themselves and for their chil- 
dren. 

Representatives of the so-called ruling clasess are frequently 

'By F. M. Leavitt. National Education Association. Proceedings. 1912: 
922-6. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 95 

found to be working for essentially the same ends with the belief 
that in this way only can be averted a struggle between employers 
and employed which, wanting a more equitable adjustment of 
present conditions, ma.y be fraught with grave and destructive 
consequences. 

At all events it seems to be reaching the social consciousness 
that individual efficiency and the individual's sense of his respon- 
sibility to society must be enormously increased. 

In working out the solution of these complex problems there is 
probably no single institution in which society in general places 
as much dependence as it does in the public schools. It is be- 
coming evident however, that an increasingly large percentage of 
all who are relying on the public schools in the emergency unhesi- 
tatingly express the opinion that the ideals of the schools must be 
modified if they are to play the important part in this social ad- 
vance which they should. 

It is one of the curious things about our American educational 
system that, conceived in a spirit of socialism so far as its or- 
ganization and administration is concerned, it has tended, never- 
theless, in its subject-matter and in its methods of instruction, to 
emphasize and to promote extreme individualism. Supported by 
funds by assessment on all the property of the community, and 
organized in such a way as to make possible, if not compulsory, 
the attendance of all children, presumably for the common good 
and as a sure foundation for social democracy, the ideals of the 
schools have centered the interests of the pupils on individual ad- 
vance and on the ultimate attainment of conspicuous success in 
the competitive social and economic struggle rather than the de- 
sirability of giving the largest possible service for the common 
good. 

Perhaps in no phase of recent scientific educational study has 
the purely individualistic ideal been more clearly seen than in the 
realm of child-study and psychology. It is not my purpose to 
state that such activity has been necessarily undemocratic, un- 
social, or inadvisable — quite the contrary. It can be shown that 
psychology has contributed in no small degree to the tremendous 
advance which education has made in the last quarter-century 
and that it has helped to bring into the schools the very elements 
which may be most effectively used in socializing education. So 
far as it has been worked over into terms of educational method, 
however, psychology has been distinctively individualistic. While 



96 SELECTED ARTICLES 

social psychology — group psychology — is such a recent develop- 
ment that its technique and terminology are still in the making, 
it can hardly be doubted that its influence on public education is 
destined to be even greater during the next twenty-five years 
than the psychology of the individual on which we have thus 
far relied. It will demonstrate that our citizenship as a whole 
must be taught to have less interest in its rights and more in its 
duties, less thought for the possibility of reaching eminent po- 
sition for oneself and more for the desirability of securing the 
contentment and happiness of the less fortunate. 

I believe that the present movement for industrial education 
has important contributions to make to this socializing of popu- 
lar education and it is to this phase of the movement that your 
attention is asked. 

It is an oft-repeated statement, but one which must neverthe- 
less be briefly discussed in connection, that many educators are 
strongly opposed to the vocational motive in education. 

In a discussion recently in a leading educational journal is 
found the following statement of the "bread and butter" princi- 
ple as seen by the classicist : 

In obedience to popular clamor, (they) resolved to replace the literary 
education, which had held sway for centuries, by a study of exact science. 
They kept sternly in view the demands of the counting-house and work- 
shop. We will not train the boy's mind, said they; we will pack the mind 
with useful facts. He shall not think; he shall remember. Strictly cut off 
from a knowledge of the past, he shall live solely in the present. Thus 
there will be no waste of force. A full pocket shall reward his industry, 
and if his head is empty of those general ideas which cumbered his father's, 
so much the better for him. He will get rich the more quickly. 

It seems to me that the distinction here drawn between the 
"cultural" and the "bread and butter" aim of education, with the 
conclusion that the latter is wholly to be avoided as sordid and 
mean, has a perfectly natural origin, a brief discussion of which 
is pertinent to our subject. When these ideals were in the mak- 
ing, the vast majority of students came from those classes of 
society whose members were economically independent even if 
not actually wealthy. The pursuit of knowledge for the sake of 
increasing an assured income, already sufficient, or with hope of 
improving, financially, a career sure to be rewarded by an adequate 
living and by social distinction, was very properly considered 
sordid and unsocial. To use education merely as a means of en- 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 97 

hancing one's opportunity of gaining a larger measure of the 
material things of life, or of controlling and exploiting one's 
fellow-beings, was indeed justly condemned. The result of such 
action could only be to increase the gap between the rich and 
poor, the able and the incompetent, the wise and the foolish, and 
therefore to disrupt society. 

Today, when universal education is our aim, "bread and 
butter" education for the masses of mankind will have exactly 
the opposite effect, will tend to bring the masses and the classes 
closer together, to secure unity in diversity by giving each a more 
genuine appreciation of and respect for the other. So far from 
being sordid and basely utilitarian, it represents one of the finest 
ideals the human mind has conceived and sets forth a philosophy 
of life which can be fully realized under no other conditions than 
complete solidarity. 

Another important social phase of the industrial education 
movement is that it is bound to have a profound effect on the 
whole system of popular education. This will be true whether 
our traditional schools admit or reject the new forms of educa- 
tion. The conditions of industry are such that the employer can 
no longer afford to train his apprentices in the old way but must 
instead evolve new methods to meet the new conditions. Train- 
ing must be had and, if the schools refuse to give it, the privately 
controlled schools will draw large numbers of the pupils away 
from the public schools, thereby greatly reducing the influence of 
the most potent socializing institution of our times. What seems 
more probable, however, and what is infinitely more desirable, is 
that the more vital and direct methods which are being developed 
in connection with industrial training will modify and greatly 
improve the methods and ideals of general education. Indeed 
there seems to be little doubt that this will be the outcome, since 
vocational training is now to be found in almost every part of 
our school system. Great activity is to be observed in the ele- 
mentary schools where retarded and discouraged children have 
been brought to see the meaning and the need of education by the 
utilization of the vocational motive, and have been led, by more 
interesting and stimulating pathways, to the door of the high 
school. The high schools have modified entrance requirements 
and have arranged and administered with wholeheartedness less 
extended courses for those needing them and have not only short- 
ened the courses but have vitalized them as well by relating them 



98 SELECTED ARTICLES 

to possible future vocations of the pupils. Separate schools have 
been established for those who for any reason cannot be cared 
for in the vocationalized classes of the elementary and high 
schools, and part-time and continuation schools and classes have 
been formed for those who must work while they study. 

The present demand fur the enlargement of the function of 
the public school, thru the introduction of industrial education, is 
but a step in the evolution of this popular institution. The ad- 
vance has always been brought about thru the efforts of those 
seeking social ends and the betterment of the people, and, as 
often, has been opposed by conservation. In this onward move- 
ment it is clear that we have reached a crisis similar in principle 
to others which have periodically confronted popular education 
when advance has become imperative and when such progress 
has been opposed by the ruling interest, whether wealth, aristoc- 
racy, or sectarianism. Unless we are to reverse all precedents the 
schools will again widen their sympathies and will receive and 
instruct a still larger proportion of the country's children, thus 
greatly increasing their social value. 

Another sociological phase of industrial education is its rela- 
tion to criminology. That industrial education is to have an im- 
mense inrtuence in preventing juvenile delinquency is the belief of 
those who have studied faithfully the lessons taught by the re- 
form schools and penitentiaries. Certainly nothing could be of 
greater social significance than the reduction of crime and espec- 
ially crime for which society, rather than the delinquent, is mainly 
responsible. It becomes entirely clear, as one studies the methods 
employed in a modern reform school and the records of those 
who have been discharged from these institutions, that the same 
kind of training for the boy before commitment would, in the 
large majority of cases, effectively remove him from the prob- 
ability of delinquency. When taught the satisfaction of work 
well done, when made to see that the way thru is infinitely better 
t!lian the way around a ditTicult piece of work, even tho it be 
rough manual work ; when he has once experienced the pleasure 
of actually carrying his own weight, economically considered, he 
is far less likely to proceed by the devious ways resorted to by 
those whose wit has been developed more than their skill. That 
"joy in work" is no mere sentimental phrase becomes a conviction 
on carefully observing large numbers of reform-school boys en- 
gaged in their somewhat skilled occupations. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 99 

It is obviously essential to the stability of society that intel- 
ligent contentment prevail thrnont the group. One of the pur- 
poses of industrial education held, more or less consciously, by 
its advocates relates directly to the contentment of the masses. 
To my mind it is one of the most subtle and far-reaching aspects 
of the movement. That social discontent exists no thoughtful 
observer will doubt, whether he can assign the cause or not. It 
has been claimed that the schools are partly to blame because of 
the false ideals of pleasure which they have engendered. These 
ideals we arc told give undue emphasis to the joys of consump- 
tion, the spending of money, and passive entertainment, and 
ignore almost entirely the finer pleasures to be derived thru crea- 
tive work or even the sterner joy of productive labor. 

Our courses of study seem to be so devised that they develop 
the child to the point where he can enjoy, intellectually and aesthe- 
tically, many of the things which cultivated people prize, beautiful 
surroundings in the home, music, art, poetry, the drama, and 
travel. This is well, but where such tastes are developed with- 
out equal attention being given to the development of ability to 
secure the means whereby the desires may be satisfied there is 
brought about an unljalanced condition which frequently leads to 
the conclusion that money is the one thing needed to secure 
happiness. The joy of consumption, rather than the joy of pro- 
duction, is the end which they seek in common, it must be ad- 
mitted with American society in general. It is believed that a 
rational plan of education which lays especial emphasis on the 
constructive activities will enable many to know the pleasure 
which comes from such work and to turn to that for some if not 
a large part of their recreative entertainment, as well as to have 
a clearer appreciation of the substantial satisfaction which their 
daily work may yield. 

Finally, industrial education is sociologically significant for 
what it is making possible in the way of collective control, that is 
control by the community, of the conditions of child labor. It is 
a matter of social concern that children are now being warped, 
degraded, killed, mentally, morally, and physically, by their early 
industrial experiences. It is of immense moment to the common 
welfare that these experiences are often wholly discouraging to 
the young workers, thereby creating or strengthening the belief 
that work is a curse, a thing to be avoided as far as may be, and 
that the prizes of life are reserved for those who exploit rather 



100 SELECTED ARTICLES 

than for those who serve. Industrial education is so successful 
in drawing attention to this matter that where such education is 
an established fact it is much easier to secure the extension of 
child-labor laws, the inauguration of systems of vocational guid- 
ance, the co-ordination of apprenticeship laws with those relating 
to education and child-labor, and the establishment of minimum- 
wage commissions to fix and maintain suitable rates of compensa- 
tion for children and minors. All these are of distinct social sig- 
nificance and the accomplishment of them will be impossible with- 
out a system of industrial education. In fact a thorogoing system 
of industrial education leads inevitably to vocational guidance, 
child-labor and apprenticeship laws, and public wage boards, and 
will serve to bind them together into a single function. 

In the great problem which confronts civilization today, the 
working out of right relations between man and man, the "masses" 
will be the first to accept the conditions of advance and to work 
and sacrifice for it. 

I repeat that, so far from being a narrow utilarian movement, 
I believe that industrial education allies itself with the broadest 
and I may say the most spiritual movement of the century, the 
promotion of genuine brother-hood. Brotherhood is possible only 
where there is frankly accepted the ideal of unity in diversity. 

Unity in diversity ; this is also the keynote of industrial educa- 
tion. Its promoters are learning to treat with equal respect and to 
strive equally hard to administer to the needs of the future fac- 
tory worker, the future accountant, the future electrician, or the 
future engineer. And if education learns to dignify all vocational 
life by giving it consideration in its various forms and relations, 
who shall say that this will not have a profound influence in help- 
ing us as a nation to develop a unity of purpose out of the won- 
derful diversity of conditions and opportunities which our coun- 
try aflfords and of which we are justly proud and which in a so- 
cial democracy should somehow be made to minister to the com- 
mon good? 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION loi 

INDUSTRIAL HYGIENE AND VOCA- 
TIONAL EDUCATION' 

1. The Anomaly 

To those who have studied the pressing problems of working 
people a serious anomaly appears in American industrial educa- 
tion. The movement for industrial education has been a most 
desirable effort to help the great masses of our people solve suc- 
cessfully thru public education one of the most serious problems 
of life^that of making a living. A rough analysis of this prob- 
lem has associated vocational preparation with forges and lathes, 
special schools, and costly apparatus. Educators have clamored 
long and loudly for appropriations with which to begin this work. 
They have said, "We can do nothing until we get the money with 
which to purchase this equipment." And they have done nothing 
without it. 

Now a more thoro survey of the prime needs of the world's 
workers will reveal two very essential and fundamental factors of 
vocational education which most industrial courses and schools 
very largely overlook, and which are, moreover, comparatively 
inexpensive. These are, first, the development of general indus- 
trial intelligence, including acquaintanceship with the complex 
industrial world of the present, and secondly, thorogoing educa- 
tion in general, industrial, and occupational hygiene. While they 
are waiting for appropriations, school systems could be giving, 
without very great outlays of money, fundamental instruction 
with regard to our complex industrial life and this invaluable 
health education, largely by the use of the schoolmaster's favorite 
instrument, the book — a simple, inexpensive tool. 

Let us glance at just one of these primary propositions — that 
in reference to health education for workers as primary vocational 
education. What is the health problem of our working people? 
From extensive studies of mortality statistics and the data of 
private and public insurance agencies here and abroad, as well as 
from many special studies, we learn, with respect to the illness 

^ By Louis W. Rapeer. National Education Association. Proceedings, 
1914:668-72. 



102 SELECTED ARTICLES 

problem, that there are in this country no fewer than thirteen 
million cases of sickness each year among those engaged in indus- 
trial pursuits. The effects of such illness are well known. Illness 
reduces bodily efficiency, causes loss of work and of wages, and 
frequently ends in death. Webb, Devine, and other social stu- 
dents and workers are agreed that to the sickness of workers is 
directly due over 25 per cent of all poverty and destitution. 

Rubinow, in his Social Insurance, reports that in Austria, 
where the government insures workers against illness and where 
accurate records are kept of the illness problem of workers, with 
nearly three million workers insured in 1907, there occurred 
1,623,000 cases of sickness, causing a loss of 28,000,000 days ; 53 
per cent of the entire working army suffered such a loss, and the 
average time lost was seventeen days each. How much of low 
vital working efficiency there resulted could not well be measured. 

In Germany, with over thirteen million insured against sick- 
ness, there were 5,200,000 cases of illness in 1908, and the number 
of days lost was 104,000,000, an average of eight days for each 
of the thirteen millions insured. Of coure, there are only partial 
costs since the public taxation for public hospitals and other such 
health agencies is not here included, and still other costs are 
omitted. Since we have as yet in this country no such systems of 
social insurance, we do not have accurate statistics of the health 
problem of our own workers. But these illness losses may, from 
several sources, be computed as an average of over two weeks of 
work and from 5 to 15 per cent of the worker's annual wages, 
including medical, burial, and other expenses both private and 
public. When we study the annual wages of our workers, a large 
proportion of them now being industrial wage-earners of the fac- 
tory type, and find that the median annual wage is not far from 
$650 to $700, and that this sum is hardly up to, and certainly not 
above, the minimum amount necessary for a family with which 
to maintain a minimum standard of living — when we see our 
industrial population working so close to this minimum, then we 
realize what direct and indirect loss of even one-twentieth of the 
annual wages for sickness really means, especially when we learn 
that 50 per cent of it is reasonably preventable. These data, of 
course, hardly show up the actual death and lowered vital effi- 
ciency problems of workers. Our working population cannot 
afford such losses ! Over one-fifth of the children brought into 
the world each year, at such cost, die in the first year, and half 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 103 

of all born into the homes of our workers die before the age of 
twenty-three. Over 1,600,000 of our total population die each 
year, 100,000 of them of school age. This is an annual loss of 
about 2 per cent of our total population, and in a modern enlight- 
ened civilization, is about double what it should be. The most 
fundamental form of general and vocational training is that 
which would enable the working population to meet more effec- 
tively these deaths, illness, and lowered vital efficiency losses. 

Moreover, the young men and women, the boys and girls of 
our schools, very much need this type of vocational education be- 
cause they themselves are seriously defective and ailing. Dr. 
Chisholm's studies of the girls preparing for work in Manchester, 
England ; the great amount of data collected in our medical 
supervision of schools ; and the statistics of examinations for 
army recruits and for those entering industry aboard — all show 
the extreme importance of complete and thorogoing systems of 
educational hygiene for our working population. 

We do not need, I think, to demontrate by the statistical 
studies that have been made that the general, the industrial, and 
the occupational hygiene phases of vocational education are woe- 
fully neglected in the schools of this country. Our teachers do 
not know the elements of general, personal, and public hygiene, 
not to mention industrial and occupational hygiene. We have few 
go'od textbooks on hygiene in use, and little or no time and at- 
tention is given to the subject as a school study. An extensive 
study of actual courses in vocational education shows that, with 
but practically one exception, the only progressive work of this 
type is being done abroad. Our vocational courses, like our gen- 
eral elementary and high school courses, almost entirely overlook 
this form of vocational preparation. 

The anomaly then, in summary, is about as follows : Hygienic 
education an indispensable phase of vocational education, and yet 
an almost total lack or great inefficiency of health education, both 
general and vocational ; millions of workers suffering high ill- 
ness, death, and lowered vitality losses, and yet educators clamor- 
ing for the costly tools for a narrow type of vocational training 
while at the same time neglecting the preparation so near, so 
fundamental, and so comparatively inexpensive. 



104 SELECTED ARTICLES 

2. IVhat Is Being Done 

The best evidences I have been able to find of adequate atten- 
tion to this important matter have been in Munich, Germany, 
some schools of England, the schools of Sweden, and the Man- 
hattan Trade School for Girls (not true of the one for boys as 
yet) in New York City. Dr. Kerchensteiner at Munich not only 
has medical examinations and follow-up work and attention to 
sanitation and physical education, but he has a regular course 
intended to give intelligence with respect to the complex indus- 
trial and civic world of today, and the elements of general, indus- 
trial and occupational hygiene. His course is called "Civics and 
Hygiene." Sweden has all these features but adds to them a most 
progressive feature in the form of health vocational guidance and 
follow-up work, including annual medical examinations by gov- 
ernment medical examiners, until the youth reaches the age of 
eighteen. A young man may be changed from occupation to oc- 
cupation ; he may be given shorter hours and guidance as to his 
health regimen ; and may even be kept out of work altogether 
until he is physically fit. In England, medical supervision and 
follow-up work with some health vocational guidance is rapidly 
making its way. In these countries the insurance of workers 
against sickness by the state makes the problem of health prepara- 
tion perhaps not such an acute one as here, yet these countries 
are leading the way in school health work. 

The Manhattan Trade School for Girls gives each girl careful 
physical examinations, annually or more often, and supplements 
these with thoro follow-up work ; the home and school environ- 
ments are made as sanitary as possible ; medical, corrective, and 
recreational gymnastics, including plays and games, are much 
used, meeting individual and community needs ; there is a great 
deal of practical teaching of general personal and public hygiene, 
and of the most usable phases of industrial hygiene, developing 
later into specific occupational hygiene for those going into def- 
inite trades; and last, but quite important, is careful guidance 
before, and follow-up work along sanitary and personal lines 
after, the girls have gone into industry. Further than these few 
examples, we can point to little that is worth while. 

The recent success of the Life Extension Institute in getting 
employers of hundreds and thousands of working people to fur- 
nish each one free of charge with an annual, very thorogoing med- 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 105 

ical examination and the remarkable revelation of the low health 
status of most of these industrial workers show what industry 
is beginning to think of thoro health education from the earliest 
years on. It, moreover, indicates that we are here on the right 
track. 

3. What Must Be Done 

We have seen the anomaly and what is being done in a few 
places, mostly abroad, to eliminate it. Let us see what in this 
country must be done along this line. Briefly, we must have : 

1. Thorogoing medical supervision of all school children, and those 
before and after the school years so far as possible, especially annual, or 
more frequent, examinations and follow-up work of a corrective and pre- 
ventive character. 

2. An improved sanitary environment at home, at school, and at 
work. 

3. Adequate individual and collective physical education, including 
medical and corrective gymnastics, plays, games, recreation, etc. 

4. Improved teaching of hygiene, general, personal, and public, general 
industrial and occupation hygiene, each person getting as much of each as 
,is reasonably possible. 

Careful health-vocational guidance up to the age of eighteen or twenty 
if possible. 

Elementary and high school must pay more attention to these 
phases of health and education, employing teachers who have im- 
proved health training and textbooks superior to those in vogue, 
along the line perhaps of the Gulick and of the Ritchie series. 
In the year or so before pupils go out into industry, they must 
have added some general industrial hygiene such as is desirable 
for all workers; and, third, if possible, they must have some 
knowledge of the special hygienic precautions necessary in the 
special occupation the pupils are sure to take up — occupational 
hygiene. Those going into teaching, for example, must, in their 
professional training know the hygiene of their occupation ; those 
going into the lead industries must know how to meet the lead- 
poisoning problem, and so on. 

Fortunately, some good texts are being published which will 
aid in the teaching side of the problem, including general, per- 
sonal, and public hygiene and general industrial hygiene. I take 
time to mention one entitled "Hygiene for the worker," by Tol- 
man, a textbook on personal, public, and industrial hygiene which 



io6 SELECTED ARTICLES 

hooks on to the keen interest of children who go out into indus- 
try, and which sets them at work in direct industrial preparation 
in the ways of health knowledge, health ideals, and health habits 
of value to them as workers. 

Another new and high-class text for upper grades and high 
schools, but more general in its appeal and in its subject-matter, 
yet of very great importance, is Coleman's "The People's Health." 
This volume will be a good introduction to special industrial hy- 
giene for those who go on into or thru high schools and trade 
schools of secondary grade. 

Here, then, we have a tentative program for helping vocational 
education to enlarge its service slightly beyond the giving of 
mere trade skill in order to help the country meet in a healthy, 
vigorous manner these serious problems of life, and to attain 
genuine social efficiency so long set by the president of this sec- 
tion as the aim of education. It may seem somewhat progressive, 
but it is not in any sense ultra. As Seager says in his "Social 
Insurance" : "In the United States we are still so far from con- 
sidering illness as anything beyond a private misfortune against 
which each individual and each family should protect itself, as 
best it may, that Germany's heroic method of attacking it as a 
national evil thru governmental machinery seems to us to belong 
to another planet." But this feeling will soon pass, since the gov- 
ernmental machinery we should chiefly use in this democratic 
country is the machinery of our public schools, especially of our 
industrial courses and schools. 



INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION ABROAD' 

Industrial Schools in Germany 

To meet the demand for industrial education, all the prin- 
cipal states of Europe have maintained training of this sort for 
at least half a century, and the United States has during the 
past decade been making rapid strides in the same direction. 
The especial plans of organization and instruction that have 
been evolved in each case seem to depend upon the temperament 

'^ From "History of Education in Modern Times," p. 357-61. By Frank 
Pierrepont Graves, Copyright 19 13, by the Macmillan Company. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 107 

of the people and upon the institutions and industrial conditions 
of the country or the locality concerned. In Germany, where 
this training has had the longest history and is probably the 
most effective, the work has been carried on through the Fort- 
hildungsschitlen ("continuation schools"). Institutions of this 
sort were first established by Wurtemberg in 1695, to supple- 
ment the meager elementary education, and by the earliest 
^years of the nineteenth century a number of other Ger- 
man states had introduced them. The "industrial law" of the 
North German Confederation in 1869 permitted the localities to 
make attendance at the continuation schools compulsory for all 
apprentices up to the age of eighteen, and required employers 
to allow them to attend. And after the Franco-Prussian war, 
when a desire to enter into industrial competition with the 
world arose, most of the other states and localities followed the 
example, and this legislation eventually became the basis for an 
imperial law (1891, 1900). The course in the continuation 
schools at first consisted largely of review work, but the rapid 
spread of elementary schools soon enabled them to devote all 
their time to technical education. Through the establishment 
of a large number of schools of various sorts, training is 
afforded not only for the rank and file of workmen in the differ- 
ent trades, but for the higher grades of workers, such as fore- 
men, superintendents, and technical office clerks. Similarly, 
girls are trained in a wide variety of vocations, and in house- 
keeping and motherhood. Many of these schools, especially in 
the South German states, have added laboratories and work- 
shops, and the training has proved so valuable that many of the 
pupils return voluntarily after the period of compulsory attend- 
ance. 

During the last twenty-five years there have also been de- 
veloped continuation schools for general education, rather than 
for special industrial education, known as Gewerbeschulen 
("trade schools") or Handwerkschulen ("artisan schools"). 
These institutions furnish theoretical courses in chemistry, phys- 
ics, mathematics, book-keeping, drawing, geography, nature study, 
history, and law. In South Germany there is a tendency to 
combine theoretical and practical work, and to develop schools 
adapted to the particular industries of the various localities, but 
North German states generally confine the courses to theoretical 
training, and leave the practical side to the care of the em- 



108 SELECTED ARTICLES 

ployers or associations. The system of industrial education in 
Munich, organized by Dr. Kerschensteiner, has been es- 
pecially developed and has attracted much attention. It in- 
cludes an extra class in the elementary schools with the chief 
stress upon manual work, to bridge the gap between school life 
and employment and serve as a preparation for the industrial 
classes of the continuation schools. The instructors for the in- 
dustrial schools of Germany are supplied through special train- 
ing schools, either by giving elementary teachers short industrial 
courses and making them acquainted with the working of the 
factory, or by taking master workmen from the factory, and 
giving them short courses in methods of teaching. 

Industrial Education in France 

In Germany these industrial continuation schools are not in- 
tended to be a substitute for apprenticeship, but furnish par- 
allel instruction throughout this period. Switzerland and Au- 
stralia also use both these features in industrial training, but the 
one especially emphasizes the apprenticeship and the other the 
continuation school. Because of unsatisfactory conditions in 
apprenticeship, France even goes so far as to attempt to elim- 
inate it altogether. More than any other ountry in Europe, 
it has made efforts to furnish the entire industrial training 
through continuation schools articulating with the elementary 
system. The pupils are admitted at thirteen, and obtain practice 
in the school workshops for three years. Iron-work is taught 
to all the boys, but the other courses vary with local needs. 
Girls learn to make dresses, corsets, millinery, artificial flowers, 
and other industrial products. A number of these continuation 
schools have added normal departments, and there is a normal 
school for industrial training at Paris. There are also through- 
out the country a number of national schools of arts and trades 
that are based upon the same principles as these lower industrial 
schools, and furnish a training for foremen, superintendents, 
and managers. There are also many evening classes for in- 
dustrial training under voluntary auspices, but as a whole con- 
tinuation education has not been nearly as well developed in 
France as in Germany. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 109 

Types of English Industrial Education 

In England, despite the rapid industrial development, little 
attempt was made before the middle of the nineteenth century 
to improve the vocational skill of workmen. In 185 1 grants 
were made to evening industrial schools and classes, and two 
years later a Department of Art and Science was established, to 
encourage instruction in drawing and science, and administer 
the grants. Schools of science were organized in 1872, and 
shared in the departmental grants. These institutions had at 
first both day and evening sessions, but after a generation be- 
came in many cases regular secondary day schools. There also 
arose many private organizations, held mainly in the evening, 
to teach "such branches of science and fine arts as benefit com- 
merce and industries." Among these was the City and Guilds 
of London Institute, which registers, inspects, and examines 
classes in technology and manual training. At present England 
has three types of industrial education, each based upon the 
work of elementary schools. These embrace the higher elemen- 
tary schools, which afford a four-year course in practical and 
theoretical science arranged according to local needs ; the day 
trade schools, furnishing a substitute for apprenticeship, which 
is now becoming obsolete ; and the evening continuation schools 
for children who have left the elementary schools at fourteen 
without completing the higher grades. Thus, while industrial 
education is still in the experimental stage, England has come 
to recognize that the country cannot successfully enter the world 
competition without it. 



TRADE SCHOOLS 

NEW REQUIREMENTS MADE BY THE 
TRADE SCHOOLS' 

The modern courses for preparing boys and girls for wage 
earning are instances of fundamental changes which are taking 
place in education. Twenty years ago handwork in the schools 
was little appreciated. Even those who urged its value were 
often foremost in disclaiming its industrial signification. Today 
a new era has dawned and we freely discuss industrial subjects 
and their interrelation with long established courses, as factors 
in trade education. A few well established schools have clearly 
shown us that the methods of the business world and not the 
ideals of some student in his cloistered study must govern the 
trade school curriculum. In such schools are found a close 
connection with the working world, direct business organization 
of shops, interest in problems of labor and willingness to change 
courses of study in response to the demand from outside work- 
rooms. The students in these schools are busy and intent at 
their tasks and show happiness and ability in work. My word 
today is from experience with the training of girls. 

In these real trade schools we can no longer cling to ideals 
of what we feel a young girl worker's education should be. We 
must face what it can be. Let us think for a moment of the 
situation of working girls in a busy, industrial city. They must 
work for self-support. They must do it immediately. They 
should have a decent wage. They should have good health and 
ideals of life that they may be successful, womanly citizens as 
well as able wage earners. What new demands do these specific 
requirements place before the schools? 

First : They must work. It is not a time for us to stand 
aside and say women should remain at home, even if that is an 

^ By Mary Schenck Woolman, Director of Domestic Arts Department, 
Teachers College, New York City. National Society for the Promotion of 
Industrial Education, Proceedings, 4th annual meeting. 19 10. 



112 SELECTED ARTICLES 

ideal to be held before us, for the economic condition of num- 
bers of families in our large industrial centers is such that the 
daughters cannot remain at home, and we therefore find six 
million women in the United States occupied with some remu- 
nerative occupation. The educator must not lead them away 
from this sore need but must find out at what task it is best 
for them to work. At the same time he must consider at what 
task they are willing to work. Every town and industrial city 
has its own problem as its occupations diflfer in kind and or- 
ganization. The trade school which wishes to help its commun- 
ity must work in a live field of endeavor and find out what the 
women are doing in the community and how the employers wish 
the work to be done. The co-operation of the working people 
themselves is required to know their interests and proclivities. 
Employers must give their practical suggestions and judgments 
and the trade union is needed for guidance in many directions 
that the school may not interfere with the best interests of the 
working world. The study of trade conditions for girls in al- 
ready established trade schools has brought numerous occupa- 
tions to the front for them, and will further bring other trades 
which skilled workers in Europe have long pursued. There are 
many opportunities for women in important occupations which 
require skill. Often these trades are the old home work taken 
from the home and made commercial and the student can utilize 
her training both at home and in business. Trade schools have 
opened up new possibilities for women's employment, but at 
the same time they have made new requirements for teachers. 
The old teachers of handwork are in general incapable of the 
task. The normally or even professionally trained teacher can- 
not cope with the problelm. Specific knowledge is needed in each 
division of a trade. Even a very capable Domestic Art teacher, 
however successful in elementary or high school, is not the one 
to prepare students to work in dressmaking or millinery shops 
in the large cities unless she has herself worked long enough 
in trade to thoroughly understand workroom requirements. On 
the other hand the ordinary trade worker is so highly specialized 
that she makes a poor teacher, though she may command a high 
market price as a worker. She can drive a workroom, but she 
cannot teach it. Both classes of instructors need special train- 
ing to fit them for trade school teaching. 

Women's industries in general centre about the skilled use 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 113 

of a few tools. The trades utilizing one tool branch out like a 
tree from its trunk into innumerable limbs, branches and twigs, 
each division being a separate trade in itself in large institu- 
tional cities. The most skilled occupations require the use of 
the sewing machine, foot and electric power; the paint brush; 
paste brush ; and the needle. Some training for skill in the last 
tool mentioned will affect more than 200,000 women workers in 
New York City alone. The point I wish to make here has two 
aspects, first, these numerous trades centering about each tool 
are not always evident unless one carefully investigates wo- 
man's work in factory and workroom. Second, the great 
variety of these trades bring teaching difficulties of no mean 
order such as (i) the only instructor who can train children for 
the workroom is the one who has had personal experience in an 
occupation, (2) trade workers seldom know more than the one 
small division of industry, (3) a school cannot afford to have 
too many teachers, and (4) the teacher who attempts to grasp 
many of these trades fails in details of workroom practice in- 
training the pupils under her. The thoughtful direction of trade 
instruction must face these varied conditions and find some solu- 
tion. 

Schemes of workshops and the taking of order work have be- 
come necessary features of the Manhattan and Boston Trade 
Schools. Experience has proved this plan to be a wise one, for 
(i) the students work on classes of material used in the best 
workrooms. (2) The ordinary conditions in both the wholesale 
and the custom trade are thus made a fundamental part of the 
instruction. (3) Through the business relation the students 
quickly feel the necessity of good finish, rapid work and responsi- 
bility to deliver on time. (4) The businesslike appearance of 
the shops increases the confidence of employers of labor in the 
ability of the school to train practical workers for the trades. 
(5) The business organization and management required in the 
adequate conduct of a large order department can itself be 
utilized for educational purposes and has its value for training 
students who show promise of becoming good stock clerks. This 
vital part of trade school instruction brings its own problems 
and requirements, and the trade school director must understand 
market conditions and prices, for there must be no underbidding 
of the market and the school must not be utilized during a strike 
to turn out goods. The conduct of the necessary business in pur- 



114 SELECTED ARTICLES 

chase of material and sale of manufactured articles is new in 
school work. 

They must work as soon as possible ; as they are financially 
unable to wait. This fact has already brought about many new 
adjustments in education, for, as the compulsory school year is 
fourteen the greater number of girls at that time have not com- 
pleted their elementary education, and therefore go to work 
handicapped. In some of our more progressive cities the ele- 
mentary school has felt it must adjust its last three grades and 
keep the girls until graduation by giving vocational instruction, 
hence plans have resulted in a combination of industrial hand- 
work and specially adapted academic work for those who wish 
it. These plans are revolutionizing the old curriculum and are 
placing in the elementary school practical and cultural courses 
,of a type which appeal to working people and their children. 
The immediate need for quick preparation for wage earning has 
tended to throw out of the course all unnecessary studies and to 
keep before the educator the use of the most important details 
only. Munich, Germany, has perhaps at the present time the best 
established work of this kind, having begun several years ago by 
special adaptation of work in the eighth grade. Dr. Kerschen- 
steiner, who inaugurated this work, is with us at the present 
time and we shall hear what he has to say of their solution of 
the problem. 

They must quickly earn a living and not be subjected to the 
temptation of a salary on which they cannot live, or the dis- 
couraging wandering about from one poor position to another, 
none of which prepares for the next. Constant investigation 
therefore becomes a new requirement of the trade school. It is 
needed in trades in order to discover new developments and 
methods of work, in knowing the slack seasons of trades, and 
Jiow one occupation can fit in to another so that a girl may be 
trained for both ; in working girls' pleasures such as dance halls, 
shows and clubs; in a knowledge of their homes and boarding- 
houses; in their hours of work; in their employers' responsibility 
for under pay, and to follow them up after they are in positions 
in order to know how they adapt themselves to them. Until 
more is known of these subjects and legislation has decided 
minimum wage questions, the trade school must in a way insure 
its students proper pay, hours, and conditions by trying to adjust 
industrial life to them. Hence the wise trade school will help 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 115 

in the solution by placing her trained students in positions, for 
the school knowing the capacities of the pupils can best find the 
right niche for each. The necessary investigations help keep the 
school work practical. 

Beyond the requirements already mentioned stretches a great 
field at which we have only time to glance. A trade school that 
merely offers courses in trade processes and forgets the develop- 
ment of the mind and spirit of the student is losing its greatest 
opportunity for service. Girls who are trustworthy, who can 
think and act, who have judgment, available education, fair 
health and the knowledge of how to keep it so will be valuable 
as home keepers during the time of their business life and after 
it. To obtain these things for each pupil should be the aim of 
each trade school, that it may turn out capable workers who also 
will be responsible citizens. Plans to develop industrial intelli- 
gence and ideals of life have brought forth new arrangements of 
academic courses. A worker who has skill but whose education 
is lacking cannot rise high in her trade. The market is full of 
tragedies of women whose poor early education stood in the way 
of advance to the forewoman's position. Accurate expression, 
ability to write business letters, the use of arithmetic in specific 
trades, the relation of trade to the community, the workers' re- 
lations to the success of their employers, the laws enacted to help 
them, their own relation to new laws, and the principles under- 
lying unions. To bring about practical work in art, history, 
geography, arithmetic, civics and economics, entirely new courses 
of study have been made necessary. Womanly ideals also have 
been developed through new means. The time is too short in 
some trade schools for actual training in housekeeping, domestic 
science, or domestic art ; but the schools already formed, such 
as the Boston Trade School and the Manhattan Trade School, 
have proved beyond a doubt that through these new business 
fields of study opened to help the working girl it is possible to 
train the womanly virtues and turn out wise, dependable, 
thoughtful women. 



ii6 SELECTED ARTICLES 

VOCATIONAL AND OCCUPATIONAL 
EDUCATION IN NEW YORK CITY' 

Everybody is agreed that a certain amount of vocational edu- 
cation is desirable. Nobody knows exactly how to give it. "Pre- 
pare the children for practical life" is the order of the parents, 
and particularly of the business world. But precisely what 
changes are necessary to prepare better for practical life is as 
yet unknown. Experiment ! experiment ! experiment ! is there- 
fore the rule. But let not the experiments affect the efficiency 
of the classroom instruction in the staple subjects. For the in- 
dustrial work, being on trial, may not meet the expectations of 
its advocates, and the known good must not be sacrificed until 
something else has been proven to be better. 

New York city is testing a variety of methods and will prob- 
ably retain some features from all of them. With its 800,000 
pupils and its magnitudinous, complex manufacturing and com- 
mercial life, it is finding that no single plan of industrial educa- 
tion will meet all needs. No one course can be adapted to the 
hundreds of occupations which offer work to its school grad- 
uates. 

First, it is desirable to give a practical turn to the instruction 
of the children in the grammar grades, putting them so far as 
possible in touch with the conditions of work-a-day life, giving 
them the knowledge of wood and iron, of paint and electric wir- 
ing, of tools and machines, of soils and plants, which the farmer's 
boy acquired as a matter of course as he helped his father with 
the chores. City life has robbed the child of the chances to get 
acquainted with the concrete materials and processes by which 
the world is kept going. Girls do not help their mother with the 
milking and the butter-making, they cannot dig in the garden, 
cultivate their own flower patches, run around in the hay fields, 
make their own dresses and hats at home, and cook and serve 
the meals during harvest for the hired hands. The realm 'of 
books to which the school introduces them is not supplemented 
with the realm of things which is equally important. Study is 
not balanced by work. So the city child, in the traditional school, 
is not fully educated. 

* By John Martin. Nation. 102:696-7. June 29, 1916. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 117 

To rectify this defect, New York city is introducing the work- 
study-and-play system of school organization which has been 
most fully developed by Mr. William Wirt at Gary, Ind. When 
Mr. Wirt was engaged to advise on the changes needed in New 
York for the introduction of this system, the authorities were 
at their wits' ends to find the funds for seating all the school 
children. About 140,000 boys and girls were not getting a full 
day's schooling of five hours. Buildings were unduly congested. 
More millions of dollars than could be found would have been 
necessary to furnish a reserved seat for each child. If therefore, 
in addition to supplying '. le old-fashioned school seat, the city 
was to furnish worksh s, playgrounds, gardens, auditoriums, 
kitchens, home econon apartments, and the like, the answer 
came, "It can't be done The funds simply could not be found, 
without passing the constitutional limit both as to bonding the 
city and as to the maximum tax-rate. 

But, fortunately, Mr. Wirt had faced similar limitations and 
had realized that, if the school curriculum were to be continually 
enriched, economies must be discovered. While parsimony in 
school expenditures is bad policy, wastefulness in school expen- 
ditures is also bad policy. When the school system was the Cin- 
derella among the city departments, and politicians, often ignor- 
ant and corrupt, granted it appropriations only after ever)^hing 
else had been attended to, it was the custom for friends of the 
schools to regard every added expenditure as a gain. But that 
day has long since passed in New York. The size of the appro- 
priation is not necessarily a measure of the good that is done. 
When forty millions a year are available, waste and prodigality 
creep in, unless the school administrators are compelled contin- 
uously to seek ways of doing the work just as well at less cost. 
But to school people the idea of stricter economy, of devising 
cheaper ways of accomplishing the same object, of thinking up a 
more effective use of existing facilities, comes no more easily 
than it does to other people. Mr. Wirt had created for himself, 
in effect, the position of efficiency engineer for school systems. 
He had worked out, through numerous experiments, extending 
over many years, a plan for supplying the modern requirements 
for making city schools meet the all-round needs of the children 
without appreciably increasing the cost. And, as to the supply of 
accommodations for giving a full school day, he could actually 
show a substantial saving. 



Ii8 SELECTED ARTICLES 

No wonder, then, that the authorities of New York city, 
harassed by a shortage of money which threatened to get worse 
as the construction of the subways proceeded, welcomed Mr. 
Wirt as a dehverer. A better education at less cost for new 
buildings was a programme which needed no expert salesman to 
recommend it. This economy is produced by putting the class- 
room seat to a double use each day. When workshops, audi- 
toriums, school gardens, and generous playgrounds were un- 
known in city schools, the lads and lasses, perforce, sat in their 
seats almost the livelong day. But as the extra facilities were 
added they began to leave their seats during certain periods, and 
so the classroom seat got less and less use. At the same time 
the workshop and auditorium were not fully employed. Often 
a splendid auditorium was empty as a tomb three-fourths of the 
time, and the playgrounds as deserted as Sahara except for two 
or three hours out of the twenty-four. The solution, once sug- 
gested, seemed so obvious that people wondered why school 
superintendents hadn't all thought of it together. Simply arrange 
the school programme so that one set of children can be in the 
classroom, while another set, equally large, is in the auditorium, 
workshop, playground, library, and park. Thus you get a dupli- 
cate school and can fully accommodate 50 or 60 per cent more 
children with the same outlay, giving to each a far better school 
than the children of a previous generation enjoyed. 

At first the Board of Education sanctioned the organization 
of Public School 45, The Bronx, and Public Schol 89, Brooklyn, 
under Mr. Wirt's direction. But as annexes to cost $220,000 
were needed in these cases before the system could be put into 
full operation, and the congestion in the Bronx schools was so 
bad as to brook no delay in rectifying it, the Board, with the 
unanimous approval of the Board of Superintendents, adopted 
Mr. Wirt's report for the reorganization of a group of twelve 
additional schools in The Bronx, at a further cost of $620,000. 
This considerable outlay was for new sites, annexes, alterations, 
and equipment. 

Acquiring sites and erecting annexes takes time, and as yet 
only seven of the twelve schools are operating on the duplicate 
plan. While this work of remodelling the buildings was proceed- 
ing, active discussion upon the merits of the duplicate plan con- 
tinued, sometimes unhappily biassed by political partisanship. 
But the Board of Education, without distinction of party, showed 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 119 

an unusual openmindedness, while the Board of Superintendents, 
despite their doubt as to whether any good thing could come 
out of Nazareth, displayed a professional breadth of mind highly 
creditable. Everybody was agreed that, without deciding that 
the duplicate plan was better than the plan of furnishing a re- 
served seat and a reserved workshop bench and auditorium place 
for each pupil — if funds would allow — the duplicate school was 
superior to the makeshift, part-time system which, in our city, 
it was superseding; and that, under actual conditions the lavish 
provision of every kind which a few private schools make is an 
unrealizable dream for our children unless we adopt some form 
of the duplicate school idea. 

In April, 1916, after prolonged consideration, the Board of 
Superintendents unanimously recommended that the Board of 
Education should request an appropriation of $4,002,195 in order 
to complete the reorganization of the situation in The Bronx 
(including a new building), to extend the duplicate system to 
two more schools in The Bronx, to reorganize schools in two 
districts in Manhattan and in four districts in Brooklyn, besides 
one school in Queens ; in all, thirty-five additional schools were 
to be organized on a duplicate-school plan. Its report was 
adopted by the Board of Education with only one dissenting 
vote. 

Then the miraculous happened. For the first time in recorded 
history the Board of Estimate decided to give the Board of Edu- 
cation more than it asked. On May 19 it voted, in addition to 
various amounts for high-school purpose, $5,106,222 "for the 
purpose of altering old school buildings, acquiring new sites or 
additions to existing sites, and constructing new buildings or 
additions to old buildings in the more congested sections of the 
city, to the end that part-time and double-session classes may be 
abolished, unsatisfactory and emergency classrooms and build- 
ings abandoned, oversized classes reduced, and expected growth 
in population provided for through the adoption of a duplicate- 
school plan of organization." 

Thus New York city is fully committed to a reorganization, 
which may cost altogether twenty million dollars, but which will 
rid the city of the long-standing disgrace of part-time and offer 
a modernized education in a modernized building to its army of 
children. 

So much has been done to supply that occupational activity 



120 SELECTED ARTICLES 

for children in the grammar grades which is a general prepara- 
tion for life and is particularly valuable to that majority which 
will work with its hands for a livelihood. 

Next above that stage comes the more intensive vocational 
training of the children in the seventh and eighth grades which 
is supplied in the five Ettinger schools. Here each pupil may, if 
he chooses, spend three hours a day in well-equipped shops, ten 
weeks being given to each shop, in order both to acquire manual 
dexterity at plumbing, electric wiring, woodworking, machine- 
shop practice, sheet metal working, millinery, dressmaking, nov- 
elty-working, household economics, and the like, and to discover 
aptitudes which will indicate what trade to follow permanently. 

It is a moot point whether three hours a day is not an ex- 
cessive amount for a seventh-year pupil to spend in the shop, 
even though the school day be lengthened to six hours. Prob- 
ably in each of these schools a ninth year will be added in 1917, 
and the shop practice be reduced for the seventh and eighth 
grades and concentrated more upon the ninth grade. Finally, a 
tenth year may be added, and the schools thus be converted into 
intermediate schools, to which pupils may go who expect to 
enter manual occupations and cannot take a full high-school 
course. 

At the top of the Garyized schools a high-school crown may 
also be placed in order to meet the needs of the rapidly increas- 
ing number who graduate from the grammar school one or two 
years before they can be employed for wages. In Gary the high 
school is housed under the same roof with the elementary school, 
and the artificial break at the eighth year is avoided. Ulti- 
mately, some schools of that kind may be organized in New 
York. Every scheme for relieving the deplorable conditions of 
the high schools must be utilized. 

What further may be done for vocational education? Shall 
specific trades be taught? The answer cannot be dogmatic. But 
experience in the Vocational School for Boys has shown that 
some trades can be taught and that many boys seek the teaching, 
while the Manhattan Trade School for Girls has demonstrated 
that hundreds of young girls who must enter semi-skilled occu- 
pations are glad to increase their earning power by taking 
courses for nine and twelve months in factory trades. Since 
the children who can remain at school to the age of seventeen 
or eighteen receive the expensive high-school course, it is but 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION I2i 

just to offer the less favored children who must leave at sixteen 
or earlier a shorter course to prepare for their chosen career. 
Garyized and Ettinger schools will hardly eliminate the need for 
distinctively trade schools, though the trades which can profi- 
tably be taught in school are so few that the number of such 
schools will be narrowly limited. A few, however, are urgently 
required. In 1916 we opened the Brooklyn Vocational School 
for Boys, and it was overcrowded within a month or two. We 
plan to extend it in 191 7. The Murray Hill School, though in- 
adequately equipped, has also proved very popular and efficient. 

For the children of fourteen to sixteen who have gone to 
work, continuation classes have been started, especially in de- 
partment stores and hotels. Usually, in these classes, the pupils 
are taught the ordinary school subjects two hours a day in the 
employer's time. For arithmetic the pupils make out bills ; for 
writing, they copy addresses ; they spell the words they must 
daily use, and any history or geography is connected with the 
goods they handle. The Board of Education is considering a 
considerable extension of the continuation classes by the exercise 
of its legal power to compel attendance for four hours a week 
when once it has established the classes. Thus, those thousands 
of children who go to work without completing the grammar 
grades will add a further modicum af academic instruction to 
the meagre vocational training which they are getting in the 
semi-skilled and unskilled places they fill. A few continuation 
classes are held for apprentices in skilled machine occupations 
who attend for one hour in their own time, and another hour in 
the employer's time. 

I have said that few trades, relatively, can be taught com- 
pletely in schools. Gainful occupations are so multifarious, the 
equipment which a learner must handle is so costly and changes 
so fast, trades are so unstable and learners are so scattered 
(many establishments having only one boy or girl helper), that 
classes and schools would be too expensive to equip, and often 
too small to justify the engagement of a teacher. So the co- 
operative plan is being tried, under which about 540 high school 
pupils of the second and higher years are arranged in pairs and 
work in alternate weeks in shop, office, store, or factory, being 
paid for their work at ordinary apprentice rates. Thus the 
school is under no necessity to equip itself with elaborate ma- 
chinery, and the pupil, while continuing the high school educa- 



122 SELECTED ARTICLES 

tion, is initiated into the mysteries of a skilled occupation. Co- 
ordinators, selected high school teachers, arrange plans of work 
for both shop and school, that the pupil may not be exploited by 
the employer nor the employer be defrauded by the pupil. Many 
difficulties have been encountered in the installation of this novel 
plan, difficulties which show that, like the other forms of voca- 
tional training, its application is limited. It cannot be expected 
that, permanently, a boy or girl can do as much study in half 
the school time as others do in full time. Therefore, progress 
at the normal rate is impossible. Employers are under constant 
temptation to consider the cooperative pupils as cheap helpers 
and to neglect to teach them different processes month by month. 
It is already clear that the cooperative plan does not offer a 
royal road to the universal industrial training even of these boys 
and girls who can afford, with its help, to go through high 
school, though it is valuable in selected cases. 

In all the schools which are equipped with workshops, both 
elementary and high, evening classes are also held, to enable 
those who are employed during the day to widen their knowledge 
of trade. Scores of short courses are offered, the instruction is 
given by experienced workmen, and amateurism is discouraged. 
Though a few students have managed, through evening classes, 
to change their trade, the great majority improve themselves at 
the trade they already practice. 

Altogether, though New York is not satisfied with its indus- 
trial education and each month extends and improves it, yet the 
amount that is accomplished compares favorably with the work 
done in any other American city. 



THE GARY SYSTEM: A SUMMARY AND 
A CRITICISM^ 

It is unfortunate that no advocate of the Gary system can be 
found who will speak of it in terms of anything but unqualified 
approval. So if we are to accept at its face value the latest 
sympathetic appraisal,* we must conclude that the problem of 

1 By H. de W. Fuller. Nation 102:698-9. June 29, 1916. 
^ The Gary Schools. By Randolph S. Bourne. Boston. Houghton Mif- 
flin Co. $1.15 net. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 123 

public education in this country has been definitely solved. The 
outworn cultural plan upon which, in recent years, was grafted 
a system which made for both greater diversity and a somewhat 
utilitarian purpose, is now eclipsed by an educational philosophy 
which at heart is said to be cultural and in its workings utili- 
tarian. The secret of the Gary plan lies, we are told, in the fact 
that students learn by doing. Book learning is of no value in 
itself; it must justify itself in the laboratory or in some other 
arena of everyday life. In a word, this system is supposed to 
impart to the acquisition of knowledge the intense interest 
which a pioneer must have in adjusting himself to a new en- 
vironment and in overcoming the difficulties which it presents. 

Superintendent Wirt, of the Gary Schools, conveniently 
visualizes his aims by asserting that his system reproduces in 
the city the spirit of the country town, where children, by help- 
ing with the work of the farm, learned much that was practical, 
besides undergoing the routine training at school. In the parallel 
should be included the heterogeneous activities of the old village 
church. For the purpose of the new educational order is to pro- 
vide a group of buildings which shall be a social as well as an 
educational centre. By a lengthening of the school day, children 
are kept from the streets, because the plant is open in the eve- 
nings parents are attracted to night classes, and they may also 
bring their children, who are free either to attend the lectures 
or to play about the halls and grounds. Further, an auditorium, 
which is an important factor in the system, is at the disposal, 
in off-hours, of any members of the community who wish to 
thresh out issues pertaining to civic improvement or other phases 
of the community's life. As students of all classes from the 
kindergarten through the high school grades are housed in the 
same building, it will be seen that any given school at Gary 
actively symbolizes almost the entire range of interests of the 
whole city. 

Mr. Shaw has said, "Those who can, do ; those who can't, 
teach." By this token, we may conclude that there is very little 
teaching, at least of the old-fashioned sort, at Gary. Teachers, 
it appears, are to a large extent merely helpers ; even the little 
children in the kindergarten are doing all manner of things. Yet 
no one should fancy that this emphasis put upon doing implies 
an absorption in the present. Ancient history and ancient lan- 
guages are taught; only they are not studied for the discipline 



124 SELECTED ARTICLES 

which has usually been held to be their main value, but for the 
service vv^hich they render here and now. So I am told that the 
value of Latin is graphically set forth on bulletin boards. One 
series of ingenious lessons has to do with the planning of cities, 
starting with Athens and including Rome, mediaeval England and 
the Continent, South America, Modern Europe, and America. 
The comparison is vitalized by contrasting other places, ancient 
and modern, with the site of Gary. Through its great diversity 
of interests, the system at Gary is enabled to illustrate the bear- 
ings on actual life of whatever subject is studied. If it is 
mechanics, the numerous workshops are there for the purpose. 
If it is mathematics or drawing, the students have a chance to 
apply their learning by making the specifications for thq various 
renovations which are often necessary. They have experience in 
accounting by managing for a certain period the school store. 
They decorate the rooms, make desks and benches, learn his- 
tory by constructing maps, and, owing to the absence of any 
sharp lines of demarcation among the grades (thus small chil- 
dren are helpers to older children and constantly moving about 
in shops and laboratories), the students are supposed to dis- 
cover not only that all knowledge can be applied, but that its 
various branches are clearly correlated. 

One of the great merits of the Gary system, especially for 
overcrowded centres, is the economy with which it can accom- 
modate a large number of pupils. The appeal on this side is 
so strong that it is likely to be installed in many parts of the 
country unless large flaws on the educational side can be dis- 
covered. The defects of other systems are admittedly serious. 
The cultural system, which was good in itself, has been largely 
vitiated by the continual addition to the curricula of "practical" 
courses. Whereas at Gary it is said that no subject of knowl- 
edge is regarded in itself as superior to any other, in most public 
schools utilitarian courses have a lure which book-learning pure 
and simple cannot hope for. The Gary system possesses the 
advantage of having reorganized knowledge consistently from 
one point of view, which is that all knowledge can be shown 
to be vital, since it can be applied. One can easily understand 
what it means to ambitious children of the poor and to their 
parents to be set in a community which is Argus-eyed and where 
every eye has a hand to do its bidding. It is not difficult to see 
how by such means an intellectual curiosity can be created com- 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 125 

parable to a small boy's interest in the workings of a country 
blacksmith shop. For Gary is not an industrial school in the sense 
of directing a given student to a definite vocation, and hence 
constraining interest at too early an age, the idea being to pre- 
pare him for any one of a number of vocations. During much 
the greater part of his career a student at Gary watches and 
participates in the great, broad spectacle of applied knowledge; 
it is only in the later of the high school grades that he may con- 
centrate severely. "The Gary curriculum," says Mr. Bourne, 
"seems to represent a determined effort to break down the dis- 
tinction between the 'utilitarian' and the 'cultural.' " 

One of the serious conditions with which the Gary system 
attempts to cope is that illustrated by the fact that "of the chil- 
dren who begin the American public school, only one-fifth ever 
reach even the first year of high school." The feeling is that the 
other four-fifths should receive a more fundamental as well as 
a broader training than that provided by the primary and gram- 
mar grades. As the great majority of these unfortunates will 
soon enter industrial life, Gary tries also to inculcate into them a 
certain amount of Yankee resourcefulness and self-reliance. In 
Gary itself, as in the case in New York city, the problem is 
sharpened by the presence of many pupils either foreign-born or 
the children of foreign-born parents, and it is believed that the 
system is in itself a real melting-pot 

To this extent at least Gary has been eminently successful. 
Whether taken as a whole it is the best system which can be 
devised for this country is another question. One cannot read 
Mr. Bourne's book or the chapters on Gary by Professor Dewey, 
of whom Superintendent Wirt was formerly a pupil without 
sensing some speciousness. Mr. Bourne says : "Studies are 
taught also with as much bearing as possible on the social activ- 
ities of the larger city community. The subject matter in the 
history and geography classes is really 'The Sociological World 
We Live In,' and textbooks, histories, atlases, globes, news- 
papers, and magazines become the reference sources and the ma- 
terials for understanding that world." "Sociological" is a word 
to conjure with these days; it is also a very tricky word, and 
will remain so just so long as sociology is made to include nearly 
every human activity under the sun. And it is beyond question 
that no little mischief is done to boys and girls by teachers not 
competent to generalize about society. Herein lies the crux 



126 SELECTED ARTICLES 

of the whole matter. Gary will not be strictly utilitarian ; it 
will not be cultural in the sense of being bookish. Yet to fuse 
the two requires a teacher of marked talent. Now I am told 
that the teachers at Gary are not chosen for exceptional abil- 
ity; the educational machinery of the plant is said to be so 
carefully thought out that even mediocre instructors can keep 
it running. Many are bound to doubt this. Children cannot 
with profit teach themselves sociology, a subject which can 
be taught only by a person possessed of mature common sense. 
And this criticism will hold for many other subjects in the 
case of which the attempt is made to apply theory to life. Ad- 
mitting that a great genius could extract from the system at 
Gary revolutionary benefits, the question remains whether the 
danger of hasty application is sufficiently avoided. The system is 
confronted by the following dilemma. By attempting to be both 
cultural and utilitarian, it may furnish students with thumb- 
screw theories ; that is to say, it may give the impression that 
there are no bridgeless gulfs between theory and practice. Or by 
avoiding altogether the spheres where theory and practice do not 
coincide, it will become strictly utilitarian in spite of itself. 

One cannot be sure that a proper function of education is 
not to dwell more on theory than on practice. Nor can one be 
sure that the mind is not better helped to right ways of thinking 
by drill in mere book-learning than it is by constant illustration 
from everyday life. By the latter process, learning can, it is 
true, be vitalized; but if it thus contains grievous errors, its very 
vividness, especially in the minds of the young, makes for long- 
standing confusion. The human interests of any community are 
not cold facts which can be sorted out by the amateur. They 
are a complex of exact science overlaid with generous impulses, 
personal aspirations and jealousies, and a psychology which only 
a master can disentangle. Is it desirable that youth should be set 
to solving the large problems of the country? Is it not better 
that they should buckle down to the tasks of mental discipline 
while their minds are in the most formative period? 

The question just touched on goes to the heart of the edu- 
cational systems which have been handed down for centuries. 
Nor is it difficult to present the merits of the older order. The 
very retirement from the practical world which children in the 
past enjoyed gave their subsequent approach to the business of 
life a freshness which it would be a pity to lose. The schools 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 127 

at Gary are an almost complete microcosm. Small children go 
through the motions of their elders in forming committees for 
civic betterment and all the other pressing problems. The boast 
is that by the time a student leaves Gary he has already qualified 
as a real American citizen. It is at least true that life holds no 
shocks for him, for he has been taught just what to expect. But 
there is a great danger that worldly-wise products of Gary will 
be little old men and women before their time. For it stands to 
reason that the disillusion comes too soon. The period when 
mental sturdiness should be forming is obviously not the proper 
time for a youth to ease off his thought so as to adjust it to the 
various compromises which life requires. Better far that a boy's 
mind should be rigid than that it should be too flexible. 

The Gary system has been thrust to the fore at a critical 
period in the history of this country, and the very nicety with 
which it appears to respond to present tendencies should make 
one the more suspicious of it as a cure-all. At a time when the 
excesses of the "uplift" movement has resulted in a general 
letting down of the sense of individual responsibility on the part 
of the victims of economic pressure, Mr. Wirt proposes a plan 
in which discipline is almost entirely relaxed. The assumption 
at Gary is that a child knows better what is good for him than 
the teacher. He is set tasks in which he is by nature interested. 
It is the child who virtually educates himself. For his benefit an 
elaborate machinery is put in motion with which he is supposed 
to carve out his destiny. Every conceivable device — including an 
hour each day for "expression," when his inner nature receives 
free play — is used to keep the pupil's interest from flagging. 
Interest got by such means seems dearly bought indeed. 

The time has come when our cities must decide the question 
whether it is not premature to set aside the admonition of Bacon, 
who, writing "Of Parents and Children," said : "And let them 
[the parents] not too much apply themselves to the disposition 
of their children, as thinking they will take best to that which 
they have most mind to." One must judge of children. Professor 
Dewey to the contrary notwithstanding, by one's self, and every 
adult knows that there are numerous occasions when he must 
lash his listlessness into subjection. Only by the hardest sort 
of self-discipline can an adult sometimes push to completion a 
task which all along he has known was worth the doing. Can 
children of themselves be expected to have this persistence? 



128 SELECTED ARTICLES 

Not unless human nature can be utterly changed. If this persist- 
ence, the willingness to persevere in the face of difficult and un- 
pleasant problems, is not inculcated in childhood, there is little 
hope for the mental fibre of the future. Hard-mindedness is 
one of the great needs of the age. Is it reasonable to suppose 
that it can be produced by a system which is in large measure the 
outgrowth of kindergarten methods? 



A GIRL'S TRADE SCHOOL COURSE 
IN DRESSMAKING' 

Believing that the Milwaukee Public School of Trades for 
Girls stands as a representative of what any school system may 
provide for the girls who do not enter high school, or who leave 
the grammar grades for various reasons, I am giving a detailed 
account of one of the courses of study as given at the present 
time in that school, hoping that it may be helpful to others in- 
terested in this line of work. Much that has been written upon 
vocational work for girls has been put in such general terms that 
it is difficult to obtain therefrom definite, practical ideas. 

The aim of this school is to train the girl for homemaking and 
for a trade. For homemaking, by teaching her household sani- 
tation through the actual work of caring for a model five-room 
flat which is a part of the school ; by teaching her cooking 
through the actual planning and preparation of food eaten daily 
by teachers and pupils; by giving her ideas on furnishing a home 
through the study of the model flat, and the study of interior 
decoration in the Art Department. For a trade by giving train- 
ing in the technique of a given trade, and developing those quali- 
ties of character which enable the girl to command a higher wage 
than the untrained girl in the same line of work. The whole 
training aims to develop responsibility, adaptability, and, to a cer- 
tain degree, efficiency. 

In this school two trades are taught, dressmaking and milli- 
nery. The school is in session five days a week, and eleven 
months a year. The school hours are from 8 :30 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. 
with one hour for lunch. Five hours are spent in trade, two 

1 By Mary H. Scott, Instructor in Sewing, Milwaukee Public Schools. 
Journal of Home Economics. 7:185-91. April, 1915. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 129 

hours in supplemental work. With each course supplemental 
work is given in academic studies, drawing and design, drafting 
(dressmaking only), cooking and household arts, and physical 
training. Two years is the time required by the average girl 
entering at fourteen to complete the work. Girls taking the 
dressmaking course spend the entire time in the school ; those 
taking the millinery course spend a year and a half in the school, 
and must have two successful seasons in trade before graduation. 
This article deals only with the course in dressmaking. Be- 
fore a girl learns dressmaking she must have some knowledge 
of plain sewing. When a girl selects this trade, she must take 
the elementary sewing work unless she has had some training in 
this line before entering. The course in dressmaking as given 
at the present time is as follows : 

I. Elementary Sevuing and Underwear: Pincushion, sewing 
bag, apron, towel, nurse's bag or belt, cooking apron (two), 
drawers, bloomers, corset cover, princess apron, nightgown, 
small princess slip, large princess slip, petticoat, kimona. 

II. Children's Department : Rompers, child's first dress, child's 
second dress, child's third dress, boy's suit, baby's slip, baby's 
dress, child's lingerie dress. 

III. Cotton Dresses: Two plain house dresses, two fancy 
house dresses. 

IV. Waists : Two middy blouses, four lingerie waists, two 
tailored waists. 

V. Advanced Dressmaking: Tight-fitted lining, two silk or 
wool dresses, two fancy dresses. 

VI. Tailoring : For personal use, suit, or coat and skirt; for 
custom work, suit, or coat and skirt. 

VII. Advanced Millinery: Hat and accessories of ribbon, 
chiffon, etc. 

At the completion of this course, the girl is given an exami- 
nation which consists of making a child's dress, a simple house 
dress, a silk or woolen dress, and her graduating dress, entirely 
upon her own responsibility without the supervision of the 
teacher. She is usually allowed three weeks in which to com- 
plete these garments. In the making of these garments, skill 
and speed are two most important factors. Accuracy, neatness, 
judgment, honesty of work, color, and design also are considered. 

Throughout the entire course, the girl works part of the time 
to make garments for her personal use and part of the time for 



130 SELECTED ARTICLES 

the school. The order work is most important as it is by means 
of this that the girl has the opportunity of getting experience in 
handling fine materials as silks, velvets, nets, lace and chiffons. 

The teachers of the various departments have been consulted 
and the consensus of opinion is that the girls should be taught 
to think quickly, to understand directions, to execute well, and 
to be reliable. 

In the elementary sewing and underwear, class lessons are 
combined with individual instruction ; but a girl's advancement 
depends solely upon her ability, and application to her work. It 
seems more profitable in this work to have the girls make a num- 
jber of simple garments, even if in an imperfect way, than to 
exact perfect workmanship from beginners, as that is always 
discouraging to the pupil and often positively harmful. Ex- 
perience has proved that the teacher in this department should 
herself first work out the problems by actually making the gar- 
ment so that she may know the difficulties and how to meet them. 
Such preparation means economy of effort, saving of time, and 
better results. 

Each department has its own special problems but the methods 
used are similar, consisting of lecture or demonstration by the 
teacher and practice by the pupil under supervision. 

Very early the girl learns that "a smart effect depends upon 
workmanship, cut, and material, designed for and adapted to a 
given personality." Carefulness and neatness in handling ma- 
terial, and proficiency in detail must be emphasized during the 
entire course, but in the advanced classes the girls must acquire 
a delicacy of touch that will preserve the crispness and freshness 
of very fine materials. 

The supplemental work is correlated very closely with the 
trade work in the class room. Simple problems in fractions be- 
come concrete when given as tucking problems. Drafting be- 
comes more interesting when the girl can study costumes, and 
work out her own patterns. The study of color harmony, design, 
and decoration is very real when applied to stenciling curtains 
and draperies or embroidering pillow covers, or to costume design 
and decoration in advanced dressmaking. 

The appreciation of color, form, and workmanship can be de- 
veloped to a large degree, even when natural ability is lacking. 
To the ambitious girl more difficult problems are given. As far 
as possible, work is adapted to the ability of the girls. Every 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 131 

effort is made to develop character and those qualities which 
make for wholesome and happy life. 

The teacher's knowledge of her subject must be such as will 
command the respect of her pupils. It is in the daily association 
with the girl that neatness, cleanliness, good taste, obedience, 
kindness, helpfulness, responsibility, and honor are taught. The 
teacher's appearance, care of the class room, and her attitude 
toward her work and her pupils are the silent forces that influ- 
ence character at this age. A demand has been created for the 
pupils of the school, and girls who have received this training 
do command a higher wage than the untrained girl in the same 
line of work. 

The Milwaukee Public School of Trades for Girls is but five 
years old. During that time the registration has increased from 
thirty pupils to four hundred. It has now more than one hun- 
dred names on the waiting list of applicants for entrance. These 
facts clearly indicate the need of such a school in Milwaukee. 



HOW SHALL INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

BE ORGANIZED TO MEET VARYING 

COMMUNITY NEEDS' 

No more serious blunder may be made by friends or advo- 
cates of industrial education than to champion any one of the 
various important means of training boys and girls, or young 
men and young women, for the practical work of life in a too 
partisan way. Modern industry is most complex. American 
social conditions are extremely varied; and we cannot too often 
remind ourselves that many different kinds of schools are needed 
to train all types of young people for the almost infinite variety 
of useful occupations. 

Elementary day vocational schools for young persons below 
the age of sixteen years, full-time day trade schools for older 
pupils, half-time and part-time day schools, for which young 
workers are excused by their employers for a limited number of 
hours per week, cooperative schools, and corporation schools are 

1 By Arthur L. WilHston, Principal, Wentworth Institute, Boston, Mass. 
National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. Proceedings. 
1914:1-7. 



132 SELECTED ARTICLES 

all important, and each one of these types has its own place in a 
comprehensive scheme of industrial education. I trust that no 
one will infer from what we shall say this afternoon regarding 
the value and importance of evening industrial schools that we 
fail to appreciate the work to be done by the various types of 
day schools. 

It is true that the evening school has certain limitations that 
we should recognize at the outset. Its sessions come at the end 
of the day's work when the body and mind are likely to be 
weary. The time available for instruction in any one evening is 
short, and the number of evenings per week that the school may 
demand for its work is likewise limited. Furthermore, overtime 
work in the students' regular employment, change of residence 
and shifting occupation, ill health, and the natural attraction of 
legitimate recreation are all likely to interrupt the classes and to 
decrease the efficiency or retard the progress of the evening 
school. After all proper allowance has been made for these 
handicaps and disturbing influences, however, the fact still re- 
mains that the evening industrial school is today the largest and 
most important factor in American industrial education. 

We cannot question that the ideal time for industrial educa- 
tion is during daylight hours ; but we must face facts, and it is a 
fact that a practical survey of the conditions surrounding the 
young people who are to become the skilled workers of this 
country is convincing that relatively few of the boys or girls who 
wish to learn a trade or enter a skilled or related technical occu- 
pation can make the sacrifice necessary to enter a day trade 
school. Moreover, to become the skilled and intelligent worker 
about which this Society hears so much requires ti)ne. Those 
who are really to arrive at this destination need help beyond the 
fourteenth year, and beyond whatever age we may reasonably 
hope that compulsory education will reach. 

The evening, therefore, after the day's work is done is the 
only time when most j^oung men are free. This time is their 
own. They may use it for recreation and enjoyment; or, if they 
are anxious to forge ahead, they may use it for self-improve- 
ment and systematic study. Ambition to advance faster than the 
rank and file of their fellows, or the hope of some position in 
advance, prompts many to use it in the latter way; and evening 
school enrollments continue to increase. The total of these en- 
rollments at the present time, I am sure it is entirely safe to say, 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 133 

far exceeds the total enrollment of all other types of industrial 
schools added together. 

The reports of the United States Commissioner of Education 
show increases in the total enrollment of evening city schools 
in the United States of from 203,000 in 1901 to 374,900 in 1910, 
and to 420,000 in 1912. The Young Men's Christian Association 
reports an increase in its educational work of from 46,900, five 
years ago, to 84,500 in 1914. This is practically all in evening 
classes. These totals and the rate of development which they 
indicate are most significant and impressive. It is a fact that an 
increasingly large proportion of the students in evening schools 
are enrolled in industrial courses or classes that are definitely 
related in one way or another to vocational needs. In the 
majority of instances we find the general rule to be true that 
whenever industry is especially active, evening schools are also 
flourishing. 

In the City of Springfield, Mass., for example, for a number 
of years past, approximately 30 per cent of all young people be- 
tween the ages of 15 and 20" years are enrolled in evening schools; 
and on the average in all cities of Massachusetts, the correspond- 
ing figure is over 20 per cent. In New York State the record is 
almost as good ; and in the City of Richmond there is an enroll- 
ment in evening classes, your Superintendent tells us, of 3,080 
pupils. This corresponds to the equivalent of the enrollment of 
every boy and girl in the entire population of Richmond for a 
period of about i 1-3 years of his or her life. 

If then, it is true that evening industrial schools hold such 
an important place in practical education, it is worth our while 
this afternoon to study carefully the question of the best way of 
organizing them to meet the needs of various commimities. We 
have seen that day schools of different kinds are needed to 
meet the requirements of different groups of persons, and the in- 
dustrial needs of different localities. We shall find, likewise, that 
different types of evening schools are also needed. In a twenty 
minute discussion, it is quite out of the question to describe all 
the variations in organization and in methods of instruction that 
are needed to fit all possible circumstances. I can only hope to 
outline a few essential conditions and point out some of the more 
marked contrasts. 

As we carefully analyze the situation, we shall find that the 
dift'erent types of evening schools tend to divide themselves into 



134 SELECTED ARTICLES 

a small number of comparatively well defined groups. Before 
describing these separate groups, however, I wish first to call 
attention to a number of the common points that experience has 
shown to be important in the organization of all types of evening 
industrial classes ; such for example as the idea that has been so 
splendidly emphasized and given reality throughout the whole of 
this Convention by the Richmond Survey — the importance of 
going to industry itself both to ascertain the needs and to obtain 
the subject matter of instruction; or again, the idea of giving due 
consideration to the human element in evening industrial schools, 
for individuals vary in as many ways as industries vary. No two 
persons are alike and to reach each one effectively, teaching must 
be adapted to his peculiar needs : it must be both individual and 
personal. 

In turning to the consideration of the contrasts in organiza- 
tion of the different types of industrial courses referred to a mo- 
ment ago we find three of these types : 

First, we have the "long-term single-subject courses" which 
may be given in any of the various mechanical trades, or in any 
of the technical or allied subjects that are naturally related to any 
kind of industrial activity. 

Second, in contrast with these, we have "short-unit courses" 
dealing directly and briefly with a single phase of a worker's 
needs. These, too, cover a great variety of possible subjects; 
and they may be planned so as to be separate, or either to follow 
one another in sequence or be readily combined in groups in 
other ways. 

And third, there are "composite technical courses" or technical 
and trade courses combined, which cover several years of coordi- 
nated instruction. 

Each of these three types of courses has a distinct and an im- 
portant field of its own ; and each one has a particular group of 
individuals to which it ministers most efficiently. 

The long-term courses are pri'marily for those who know with 
a fair degree of accuracy what they want; for those who are 
not likely to become discouraged by a too early announcement 
of the length of time that will be required to reach the goal that 
they seek; and for those who have sufficient faith in what the 
school can do for them to make them willing to pay the price in 
sacrifice of both time and effort that is necessary to obtain the 
needed training. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 135 

These courses may follow a single subject or a single line of 
work over a considerable period with a large group of students ; 
or they may start with the large group of men and later differen- 
tiate the work into several sub-divisions with smaller groups. 
The work, too, may be so arranged as to permit students here 
and there throughout the course to supplement it with related 
study selected from other courses. The distinguishing feature of 
the kind of organization that we are now discussing is its 
continuity for the individual student. 

In general the type of person for whom such courses may be 
regarded as being primarily planned is the young fellow who has 
recently entered into industry and who has not yet found hisi 
exact place — the high-grade apprentice boy perhaps, who does 
not yet know into which department of his trade he will later 
go — but who is nevertheless ambitious to make the most of his 
opportunities. He represents a most important group of men, 
and one that merits the most careful consideration in planning 
the organization of evening schools. 

Time is absolutely essential for producing certain kinds of 
very valuable results. For such results courses that have 
continuity are important. 

Short-unit courses occupy quite another field. In every large 
industrial community it will be found that there are many 
workers who have come to realize the need of taking only the 
immediate step in front of them and who would be discouraged 
by anything that appeared to them remote or not of present use. 
Such workers may be most effectively appealed to by short 
courses that deal exclusively with the work of the moment, or 
that lead directly to some practical task in advance but neverthe- 
less not far away. 

In extending industrial education into new fields, in trying 
to make evening schools reach new groups of workers, or in 
other words in tilling new soil, these short-unit courses are most 
valuable. 

They are valuable, too, in another way : namely, in forcing 
teachers and administrators to study the subject matter of their 
courses until they eHminate every last detail that is non-essential, 
and that does not have a maximum of practical usefulness. They 
thus force teachers to enrich their instruction, to make it alive, 
and to bring it close to earth. 

The short-unit courses, furthermore, permit a greater flexi- 



136 SELECTED ARTICLES 

bility tliaii is possible whon the instnietion is organized over ex- 
tended periods of time. They pemiit intimate study of individual 
needs, and tlie selection from a variety of topics of the particular 
combination of short-unit subjects that will exactly meet each stu- 
dent's individual requirements. 

The typical man for whom we may .-^ay, perhaps, that such 
courses are most helpful, is the mature worker whose occupation 
is more or less thoroughly established, whose vision of his own 
needs is somewhat limited, whose mind is less flexible than that 
of the young- man described before, but who nevertheless feels 
the need of definite practical instruction to help him at some 
point in his regular work. This type of man represents a large 
percentage of all industrial workers. He should not be over- 
looked, even though at times it is found diuicull to effectively 
reach him. 

If I have accurately analyzed these two types of courses, the 
long-term and the short-term courses, we shall find that as 
teachers gain experience in evening school teaching and learn the 
industrial needs of their communities more accurately, and also 
as the workers themselves learn to know what the school can do 
for them and acquire growing faith in its ability to serve them 
well, gradually short courses will tend to change into longer 
courses. Persons who have not been students before will 
gradually become students ; more and more workers in the com- 
munity acquire the "study habit" and the evening habit, and more 
will come to appreciate the value of continuity in school courses. 

On the other hand, if the school organization is alive to its 
opportunities, new fields will be found opened up in which new 
short-term courses may be started. This, of course, will not 
always or necessarily be the case, but the toiulency, I believe will 
be steadily in this direction. 

And now we come to the third type, the composite courses, 
either trade or technical, which include a group of related sub- 
jects extending over several years and covering a wider field than 
either of the two preceding types of courses. This t>-pe of course 
may be regarded as being planned for a group of individuals who 
because of their superior, earnestness and ambition and apprecia- 
tion of their needs are prepared for a more thorough training 
than would otherwise be practical. 

In a number of schools that have been iu the lieUl for a long 
time, and whose experience therefore is significant, there has 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 137 

been a distant tendency of courses of this type to develop. Ex- 
perience shows that industries are constantly changing and that 
men do not always follow the narrow path that they mark out 
for themselves. Often it happens that persons who think they 
know exactly what their future work will be, find themselves, a 
few years later, in some related field. For such persons, there- 
fore, breadth of industrial training is quite as important as depth 
of training; and one of the most valuable things that practical 
education can do is to cultivate the versatility and adaptability 
that new conditions and new opportunities require. The com- 
posite technical or trade courses, because of their length and the 
variety of subjects that they include may accomplish this more 
fully and satisfactorily than courses organized in other ways. 
They, therefore, have an important place, and it would be a mis- 
take to try to substitute other types of evening instruction for 
them. 



VOCATIONAL TRAINING IN 
CHICAGO SCHOOLS' 

Before we accept the argument for a dual board of control 
for vocational education we should find out what the schools are 
actually doing that warrants the charge that they are failing to 
provide practical education. Chicago can show full-fledged voca- 
tional schools, industrial and technical courses, and well-equipped 
organization for the practical training of youth in the regular 
routine of high and grammar schools. The cosmopolitan high 
school, one in which cooking and blacksmithing are given in the 
same building with Greek and art, is not merely a possibility but 
a working actuality in this city. A brief summary of conditions 
will convince anyone that within the last half-dozen years Chi- 
cago has been rapidly spreading educational advantages to all 
classes of people. All of this is being done under the manage- 
ment of a single or unit board of education. 

In the first place, the administration has perfected an organi- 
zation to manage work for vocational and industrial education. 
One district superintendent gives his entire time to the problem 

1 By John T. McManus, Chicago Normal College. School Review, 23:145- 
58. March. 1915. 



138 SELECTED ARTICLES 

of connecting up the schools with industrial needs of the city. 
Then there are two supervising officers for vocational and techni- 
cal courses in the high schools, both appointed within the last 
year or two. In addition to these persons there is a supervisor 
of household arts and sciences for the schools and a supervisor 
of industrial work in the grades. 

In the second place, the advocates of the dual system of con- 
trol have argued that the teachers now in the schools are aca- 
demic and not practical enough to meet the needs of the industrial 
education of children. They cite the passing of the old manual- 
training school, which owed its failure partly to the theoretical 
and academic teachers who took charge of it. Whether this bit 
of history be true or not as regards manual-training schools, the 
present vocational schools of Chicago are safe from that danger 
because they have practical teachers to handle the work in indus- 
tries and vocations. The following regulations make clear the 
practice in the city schools. On October 19, 1910, the superin- 
tendent of schools reports that 

the work of giving technical instruction in the evening schools to young men 
and women engaged in the industries has been greatly handicapped for 
want of teachers who have had a trade experience necessary to equip them 
for giving the proper kind of instruction. Teachers with good technical- 
school training, but without experience in the industries, may be had, but 
such are not competent to do the work required because of the lack of 
actual trade experience. The right kind of teachers is hard to find, and if 
the superintendent is given authority to employ such persons when found, 
their services may be made available at once in the evening schools. The 
superintendent, therefore, recommends that section 118 of the Rules of the 
Board be suspended, and that authority be granted to the superintendent of 
schools to issue temporary certificates to graduates of technical schools of 
good standing who have had the necessary experience in the trades and to 
employ them as teachers in the evening schools, subject to the approval 
pf the committee and of the Board, such certificates to expire at the end of 
the school year. The superintendent requests emergency authority to act 
at once on this matter. 

This request was granted.* On January 8, 1913, 

the superintendent recommends that authority be granted to the superin- 
tendent of schools to issue when necessary temporary certificates to men 
and women with the expert experience that equips them to give practical 
instruction in their trades, such certificates to expire at the end of the 
school year; to assign said teachers in the day school, subject to the ap- 
proval of the Board; and to place said teachers on the regular schedule for 

I Proceedings of Board, 1910-11, p. 242. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 139 

technical teachers in the high school if the assignment be a high school, and 
on the regular schedule for manual-training or household arts teachers in 
the elementary school, if the assignment be to an elementary school.* 

At the present time, in the high schools, night schools, and 
elementary schools, there are many men and women teaching who 
have had the most complete and successful trade exprience in the 
world of industry. A list of a few of the schools and the courses 
where teachers of this type are employed will refute the argu- 
ments of the advocates of dual control that the schools cannot 
get "practical" teachers to do the work required and demanded 
by the business world. 

In eight of the high schools of the city there are full four- 
year courses in technical instruction now in operation. The 
teachers in these schools are in the majority of cases "practical" 
men, the others being school men with college training in tech- 
nical subjects but no trade experience. 
Crane Technical High School 

Woodwork 3 practical men (from the trades) 

Woodwork 5 college-trained men (no trade experience) 

Foundry 2 practical men 

Forge 2 practical men 

Machine shop 2 practical men 

Electrical i practical man 

Electrical i with some practical experience 

Lane Technical High School 

Woodwork 2 practical men 

Woodwork 5 college-trained men 

Foundry i practical man 

Forge 2 practical men 

Machine shop 3 practical men 

Electrical i practical man 

Electrical i college-trained man 

Lake Technical High School 

Woodwork 2 practical men 

Woodwork i college-trained man 

Foundry i practical man 

Forge 1 mechanic 

Machine shop i practical man 

Bowen High School has all practical men in shop and foundry. 

Schurz High School has three practical men and one man without trade 

experience in its shops. 
Senn High School has two practical men and three college mechanics. 

Hyde Park High School has all practical men in its shops. 
Harrison Technical High School has all practical men in shop and foundry. 

* Proceedings of Board, 1912-13, p. 659. 



140 SELECTED ARTICLES 

The above list of eight high schools does not contain all of the 
men in technical work now employed in the various schools of 
the city, but it gives an idea of the extent to which men with 
trade experience have been brought into the work of teaching. 

In the commercial courses and the courses for girls there 
exists the same proportion of teachers with actual commercial 
and trade experience as shown in the technical courses/ Work 
in accounting and stenography and office preparation is carried on 
by students under teachers directly from offices and commercial 
employments. Women with experience as milliners, dressmakers, 
managers of dining-rooms, and shop workers are in many cases 
in charge of classes in the Flower Technical School for girls and 
other high schools of the city. 

The night-school classes are taught in a majority of cases by 
men and women with trade experience. Such courses as sewing, 
and dressmaking, millinery, bookkeeping, stenography, chemistry, 
electricity, mechanical drawing, freehand drawing, printing, and 
agriculture are in the hands of teachers who know their jobs by 
actual experience. 

There is absolutely no excuse, so far as getting practical trade 
people to teach, for a dual control of our schools. Chicago can 
show this class of teachers in all of her high schools. Of course 
the difficulty of getting a man or woman experienced in the in- 
dustries and at the same time a competent instructor of boys and 
girls is felt now, but would in no way be lessened by a dual sys- 
tem. It is recognized in the schools now, where such persons 
have been taken in from the trades, that not all of them will ever 
become first-class teachers, but the vast majority of them soon 
learn through association with the regular academic teachers how 
to do the work. It is this sort of association between the two 
types of teachers that will make possible the success of the work 
of each class, and a dual system would therefore defeat the end 
of good teaching. 

If we turn now to the courses offered in the city schools for 
vocational and industrial training, we are struck by the rapidity 
with which this work has been taken over into the regular school 
curriculum and made an organic part of the schools. People who 
wish to establish vocational schools, in addition to the schools 

^ Of the 37 teachers of stenography, bookkeeping, commercial law, and 
commercial geography who entered the day schools during the past year, 26 
came direct from the business world; the others had been teachers of com- 
mercial subjects in other schools. In the commercial department of the 
evening schools, 40 teachers with practical experience were added. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 141 

already in operation, must be blind to the fact that such schools 
are already working very efficiently now under the unit manage- 
ment. Notice the various branches now in operation ; 

1. Industrial centers in 20 elementary schools. (There would 
have been 46 of this type of school this year if money had been 
available.) In these schools children in the upper grades — the 
sixth, seventh, and eighth — are furnished opportunity to enter 
upon vocational training. 

2. Prevocational courses in the technical high schools. Here 
boys and girls over-age but behind in school work are instructed 
in vocations. 

3. Two-year vocational courses in all of the 22 high schools 
of the city. These courses are eleven in number as follows : 
accounting, shorthand, mechanical drawing, designing, carpentry, 
pattern-making, machine shop, electricity, household arts, print- 
ing, horticulture. Two or more of these courses are given in all 
the schools and most of them give practically all such courses. 

4. Four-year vocational courses as follows : commercial, office 
preparatory, technical, general trades, household arts, arts, and 
architecture. In addition to the regular technical high schools, 
these courses are given in most of the regular high schools 
where the general, the science, and the normal preparatory 
courses are given. 

5. Apprenticeship courses in several industries : carpenters, 
electrical workers, plumbers, machinists, sheet-metal workers. 

6. Two-year college course for technical education and engi- 
neering. 

7. Evening school courses in more than twenty vocational 
subjects. 

A careful study of the following items will show something 
of the status of vocational education in Chicago : 

I. Industrial centers: On May 3, 1911, "the superintendent 
of schools reports that a division should be made in the elemen- 
tary course of study at the beginning of the sixth grade for the 
purpose of providing an industrial and a general course for pu- 
pils, each of which will meet the requirements of graduation and 
entrance to high school."^ 

Again on January 24, 1912, the superintendent returns to this 
subject and reports that 

in accordance with this authority, the superintendent, after conference with 
members of the education department, arranged for two courses of study. 



142 SELECTED ARTICLES 

and the new division — the industrial course — was printed with the general 
course of study, and distributed to all of the schools before the opening of 
September, 191:, so that teachers and principals might be familiar with the 
tentative plan proposed. As this is the first arrangement of a course of 
study along these lines, it has been necessary to give consideration to all 
the details, and up to the present time it has not been possible to determine 
whether there will be money available during this year for the two extra 
teachers of industrial and vocational subjects who will be required in each 
school in which the new division of the course is introduced. As it now 
appears that enough money will be available to provide these teachers, and 
as a number of requests have been received from principals of schools like 
the Jackson and Von Humboldt, situated in congested districts, for the in- 
troduction of a course which will keep pupils longer in school and fit them 
better for their vocations, the superintendent recommends that authority be 
given to introduce the new course at the beginning of the new semester, and 
to assign the two additional teachers at each school selected by the superin- 
tendent for the introduction of the course.^ 

From letters of principals and teachers in these schools we 
give the following items : 

(i) "In two years sinc'e opening center, membership in the eighth grade 
is 86.9, while for two previous years it was 73-I-" (2) "While pupils 
devote only half as much time to academic subjects as formerly, yet they 
cover the grade work and the results are creditable." (3) "We have better 
attendance since opening, and children have less desire to go to work." (4) 
"Attendance in these grades is larger and more regular than ever before." 
(5) "Pupils over fourteen remain. Mending in the homes is attended to 
and cooking and housekeeping are done better. Many pupils go to Flower 
and Lake Technical schools." (6) "Membership is larger than ever in the 
sixth, seventh, and eighth grades. The children are happy in their work. 
The joy of doing things with their own hands gives them encouragement 
that they, too, are becoming a vital part of the great world about them." 
(7) "Attendance 1913 (before opening), 97.16; in 1914 (first year), 97.72; 
graduates 1913 were 34, in 1914, 47." (8) "This work promotes attend- 
ance and pupils will not miss a cooking, sewing, or manual-training class." 

(9) "An unusual number of girls have gone to work in private families." 

(10) "Increased attendance — Keeps older boys in school." (11) A decided 
.decrease in the number of work certificates issued to pupils in grades hav- 
ing this work." (12) "Improved attendance." (13) "Fewer boys ask for 
work certificates and more boys over fourteen in grade than in previous 
years." (14) "This industrial work has materially affected our attend- 
ance. Many more pupils now remain in school until they complete the 
elementary course. In 1913, before opening this industrial center, 63 
pupils were accredited to the high schools. During 1914 we graduated 97 
pupils, a gain of 54 per cent in number of pupils completing the grammar 
grades." 

> Proceedings of Board, 1910-11, pp. 873-74. 
^ Proceedings of Board, 1911-12, pp. 523-24. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 143 

2. Prevocational figures: 

Crane No report 

Flower Cooking and sewing 76 

Harrison Various lines 35 

Lake No report 

Lane Woodworking 48 

Forge 60 

Machine shop 24 

Printing 60 

Foundry 20 

Total prevocational reported 323 

For the two-year vocational, the four-year vocational, the 
two-year college courses, see the following tabulation of the high 
school work of the city. This tabulation (Table I) was compiled 
from reports of the principals made in January, 1915, and shows 
the relative numbers taking the courses offered in the high 
schools. If one remembers that the two year vocational course 
was opened in 1910 he may appreciate the rapidity with which it 
has grown. This growth has not been at the expense of the 
general course, but indicates an increased number of boys and 
girls attending high school. 

A summary of the commercial work being done in the two- 
year courses of the high schools of Chicago made in November, 
1914, gives the following results :^ 

Business English studied by 5,352 

Stenography studied by 4,i95 

Bookkeeping studied by 3.045 

making a total of 12,592 enrollments in the classes of the high schools in the 
two-year studies fitting for offices and clerical work in the city. 

Apprentice classes are conducted in the schools at the present 
time and have enrolled in the different lines of work: 

Carpenters 236 

Plumbers 1 74 

Electrical workers 83 

Machinists ." 24 

Sheet-metal workers (until recently) 30 

Total in attendance 547 

Classes are to be opened at an early date for printers, bakers, 
and druggists. Most of this work can be carried on and is being 

* This summary includes Morgan Park High School. 



144 



SELECTED ARTICLES 



carried on with the facihties already at hand with perfect case 
and effectiveness. The arguments for a dual system that would 
double the school plants because there were no opportunities for 
the industrial workers in the present school organization have no 
validity so far as the apprenticeship courses are concerned, be- 
cause they have been accommodated from the first and can con- 
tinue to utilize the present school plant almost indefinitely.^ 

In the two-year college engineering course the following work 
is given. This work has been given in two of the high schools of 
the city and has been successfully carried on. First year : mathe- 
matics, science, English, gymnasium are required, while modern 
language, shop, science, design are elective. Second year : mathe- 
matics, science, English, gymnasium are required, and shop, 
science, engineering, modern language are elective. 

A summary of evening school attendance for November 5, 
1914, shows the following work and attendance : 
Household courses: Women 

High-school sewing and dressmaking 987 

Elementary sewing 680 

Millinery 276 

Cooking, high school i77 

Cooking, elementary 335 

Total household courses 

Men Women 

Bookkeeping 767 321 

Stenography 862 1,323 

Special business course 213 58 

Commercial law 91 7 

Total commercial courses 

Industrial subjects: 

Chemistry 188 18 

Electricity 

Woodworking 

Pattern-making 

Machine shop 

Foundry 

Forge 

Mechanical drawing 1,247 

Freehand drawing 95 

Printing 123 

Agriculture 36 

Total industrial subjects 4>04i 

Total household, commercial, and industrial 10,126 

* An advisory board consisting of a member of the union concerned, a 
member of the employes' association, and a member of the Board of Educa- 
tion plans the course and conduct of the work. 
Commercial classes: 



744 
943 

84 
30s 

SS 
201 



Total 
987 
680 
276 
177 
335 

Total 

1,085 

2,185 

271 



206 
744 
984 

84 
30s 

SS 

201 

1,259 

117 

123 

40 



2,446 



3.639 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 145 

Other classes: 

English, for foreigners 8,809 2,650 ii.4S9 

Elementary grade work 2,886 994 3,880 

Regular high-school subjects 1,704 814 2,518 

Physical education 264 413 677 

Classes for deaf 2 9 11 



Total other classes 18,545 

Grand total, less 295 counted twice 28,376 

Grand total for first quarter last year 21,839 

Evening schools have been easily managed by the single or 
unit system of control and have been extended as rapidly as 
money was available for them. A dual control would simply add 
to the expense of the taxpayer by requiring a duplication of 
building and apparatus for the evening schools where now there 
is sufficient of both in the regular schools. 

It is evident from the growth of vocational and industrial 
courses in the schools of Chicago that what is needed is more 
money to foster the work already begun and not an entirely new 
set of schools. 



PROBLEMS OF INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 
UNDER PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION' 

However much one may wish to avoid the indelicate refer- 
ence to the rope in the house of the hangman he is forced to do 
so unless he would deliberately fail to discuss the subject of con- 
trol in industrial education. The question is fundamental in any 
discussion of principles and policies regarding industrial edu- 
cation. The conditions of efficient control must be set up by some 
agency, whether unit or dual, or by a combination of both. 

I have been impressed with the strength of position of each 
side in the classic controversy now occurring. My own expe- 
rience leads me to believe that an effective industrial school can- 
not be organized, established, and placed upon a going basis with- 
out the degree of freedom best in promise under the system of 
dual control. I am also convinced that there is considerable 
danger in building up two educational authorities such as the 

1 By Frank V. Thompson, Assistant Superintendent of Schools, Boston, 
Mass. National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. Proceed- 
ings. 1916:337-46. 



146 SELECTED ARTICLES 

dual system threatens ; in creating divisive influences that would 
threaten to separate educational forces into two unco-operative, 
competing, and hostile camps. The adherents of the dual system 
have in mind the success of a single type of school ; the advo- 
cates of the unit system, the permanent good of the educational 
system. I have sometimes thought that a compromise plan 
might be possible, namely, the adoption of a temporary dual 
system during the period of foundation, organization, and experi- 
mentation ; afterwards, at a stated time, five years as a sugges- 
tion, turn the going concern over to the major forces vested with 
general control of educational affairs. In Boston, there has been 
much suggestive precedent for this proposal, not in the names 
unit and dual, but in procedure similar to the idea contained in 
plans termed unit and dual. Many present endeavors in our 
schools were originated under private philanthropic, or public- 
spirited control. This was true with respect to the kindergarten, 
sewing and cooking, and manual training. The Trade School 
for Girls was thus founded and operated for some years ; voca- 
tional guidance and salesmanship are similar instances. Many 
other cities very likely can point to similar occurrences. The his- 
tory of the development of industrial education, administered by 
the state educational authorities of Massachusetts, shows some 
points of similarity to the experience of Boston. Originally when 
the active promotion of industrial education was in progress and 
when the fundamental basis for procedure was being studied 
there was established an independent industrial educational com- 
mission ; subsequently the administration of industrial education 
was placed under the charge of the (reorganized) State Board 
of Education. The influence and contribution of the original 
commission were perpetuated both in the procedure transmitted 
and in the laws incorporated into the statutes relating to indus- 
trial education, which provided that approved schools be inde- 
pendent schools. 

The factor of independence is the essential condition, as I 
conceive it, of effective vocational industrial schools. There is 
possible no easy transition from the general school as now main- 
tained or from the technical high school to a type of effective 
industrial school. Many communities are still unconvinced of 
the truth of this proposition and are either trying to effect the 
impossible end or are proposing to make the attempt. Some of 
those who have tried and failed have concluded that the trouble 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION I47 

is In the project itself and have not seen that the difhculty was 
merely in the method used. There is no type of school which is 
so dependent upon favoring conditions as the industrial school. 
Conditions must be favorable regarding methods of instruction, 
qualifications of teachers, size of classes, furnishings and equip- 
ment, location of buildings, amount of floor space for pupils, 
quality and quantity of material. A defect in any one of the 
above may easily render abortive the proper functioning of the 
other factors. The figurative illustration of the chain with the 
weak link becomes literal with respect to the operation of the 
industrial school. Modern productive plants show the same 
situation — each worker on the complicated product must per- 
form his operation correctly or else the finished product is worth- 
less; in fact, the product becomes worthless at the point of the 
first mistake because the succeeding operations are wholly con- 
ditioned upon the accuracy of the former operations. It is not 
strange, consequently, that an effective industrial school should 
show the same sensitiveness to conditions which characterize the 
highly organized industries for which it is preparing young per- 
sons to enter. Our general schools are not adjusted to measure- 
ments of millimeter exactness; but they are adjusted to varia- 
tions of far more generous margins. The point of view of 
the general school through precedent, circumstance and super- 
imposed restrictions shows of necessity compromise, approxima- 
tion and variable standards. The general school has justly won 
commendation for its achievements in view of hampering con- 
ditions. Its function has been general and it has been generally 
successful. The general school cannot, however, "by taking 
thought, add a cubit to its height." It cannot assume a new, 
technical and highly specialized function and be successful, for 
it lacks the proper point of view, the necessary resources and an 
adequate background. There are impractical idealists who believe 
that we can over night raise a million men who can protect our 
liberties against the onslaughts of technically trained and well 
disciplined troops of possible aggressors; but the wisdom and 
judgment of our experts on these matters indicate that the plan 
of the idealist is futile, that we must technically train and equip 
our defenders by special methods and under the direction of 
skilled and experienced instructors. Our general schools in many 
sections of the country are playing the part of the generous 
and patriotic volunteer in industrial education, but the task, 



148 SELECTED ARTICLES 

again, is too technical and specialized for their recognizably good 
intentions. 

Let us proceed to discuss the positive and constructive side 
of the question. How^ may we effectively meet some of the 
problems of industrial education? First, there is the problem of 
teachers. Proper teachers at present do not exist so we must 
undertake to create them. The conclusion that suitable teachers 
for industrial schools are at present non-existent is based upon 
certain assumptions regarding the qualifications of teachers in 
industrial schools. The general principles underlying these 
assumptions were well stated at the seventh annual meeting 
(Grand Rapids) of the National Society for the Promotion of 
Industrial Education. Teachers in industrial schools must pos- 
sess primarily a generous background of industrial experience. 
Expertness in the art of teaching is likewise desirable, but if we 
must sacrifice, temporarily, one or the other the second quali- 
fication is the less important. If faced with the dilemma it is 
more reasonable to conclude that the worker in industry can im- 
part the knowledge of his craft, than that the teacher who knows 
how to teach them can teach what he does not know. The ac- 
quisition of the art of teaching is far easier than the knowledge 
of what to teach. We proceed upon this same assumption with 
regard to teachers in our regular schools. An analysis of the 
amount of time devoted to what to teach and how to teach will 
show a like relative proportion of knowledge of subject matter 
and technique in the art of teaching. The normal school student 
has devoted already twelve or more years to the study of what 
to teach before he spends his two or more years in the study of 
how to teach. The long preliminary period constitutes for the 
normal school student a proper prevocational or experience back- 
ground for teaching in the regular schools, but not so for the 
teachers in the industrial school, since the former has in view 
instruction in the regular school, but the latter must train young 
people for a wholly different environment. 

If we could imagine a situation where a candidate for teach- 
ing in the regular schools had spent his preparatory years in 
industry and then by means of a short period of training in the 
technique of teaching assume the function of teacher in a regular 
school, we should have a condition no less absurd than the 
attempt to convert a regular teacher into an industrial teacher 
by means of a short term experience in industry. We must apply 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 149 

the same logic to the industrial school that we apply to the regu- 
lar school. The best background for each kind of teacher is 
found in the appropriate experiences which each will find in his 
own field — the regular teacher in the domain of the regular 
school; the industrial teacher in organized and competitive in- 
dustry. We must go to industry consequently for our indus- 
trial teachers. Industry will give the proper experience and 
point of view. But we must add to the fundamental background 
technique in the art of teaching. The effective industrial teacher 
ought to know two trades, the trade which he is to teach, and 
the trade of teaching that which he knows. 

There do not exist today, obviously, the resources or insti- 
tutions, except in isolated instances, for training persons skilled 
in trades in the art of teaching. Nor can we meet the problem 
by simply adding industrial training courses in our already estab- 
lished normal schools. The skilled worker whom we wish for 
our industrial teacher is not financially independent so that he 
can dispense with his wages during the period that a normal 
training requires. What can be done is more difficult to define 
than what can't be done. The city of Boston with the assistance 
of the state educational authorities is attempting to meet the 
two conditions deemed essential for proper trade instructions 
by the following plan. 

Regarding the qualifications of trade experience, any one of 
three requirements is demanded. 

(a) Eight years' experience in industry, three years' appren- 
ticeship or equivalent and one year of foremanship or 
equivalent — and academic accomplishment that of the 
elementary school or equivalent. 

(b) Five j^ears' experience in industry, one year of which 

spent in foremanship or equivalent and academic ac- 
complishment that of the high school or equivalent. 

(c) Three years in industry, one year of which spent in 

foremanship or equivalent and academic accomplish- 
ment that of the higher technical school or equivalent. 
No candidates to the qualifying examinations for positions 
as teachers in industrial schools are admitted unless they shall 
have successfully pursued an approved course of training for 
teachers in industrial schools. Such a course has been con- 
ducted during the past two years by the state educational depart- 
ment. The course is conducted two evenings a week for a period 



I50 SELECTED ARTICLES 

of twenty weeks by instructors representing both the city and 
the state. Instruction in the technique of teaching as well as in 
trade processes are continued in the school for teachers already 
employed. Thus both preparatory training and improvement 
training are attempted in the plan under operation. It is evident 
that only in improvement training can our industrial teachers 
reach the stage of development in the techniqufe of teaching 
which our graduates of normal schools possess in the regular 
schools. Our pedagogical convictions regarding all kinds of ef- 
fective teaching are leading us more and more to see the im- 
portance of improvement training in all grades of schools ; and 
in this matter our industrial schools may possess equal advan- 
tage with all other types of schools. 

It is my conviction that city and state administrative authori- 
ties having charge of industrial education may devote them- 
selves energetically and hopefully to the matter of improvement 
training of teachers already employed in industrial schools. 
Teachers in our regular schools are made effective largely upon 
the basis of experience in the class room. Timely guidance, sug- 
gestion at the time of need, appreciation of problems actually 
encountered are essential elements in the attainment of power 
in teaching of whatever character. Preliminary instruction for 
industrial teachers is necessary, however, but it is chiefly useful 
as an eliminating factor. The preliminary course will discover 
the person with aptitudes and tastes for the work. The pre- 
liminary course, indeed, is largely prevocational enabling indi- 
viduals to determine their fitness for the work. The real voca- 
tional work of teaching is reached only under the conditions of 
actual performance. 

The conditions of work to which the industrial school are 
sensitive have been enumerated. The selection and training of 
teachers, organization, floor space per pupil, materials and prod- 
uct, equipment, methods of instruction, type of school, are all 
elements of vital importance in the success of any kind of indus- 
trial school, but the limits of this paper do not permit to each 
topic the detailed discussion which has been attempted with re- 
gard to the selection and training of teachers. Growing experi- 
ence is creating an accumulation of evidence and conclusion upon 
all these important matters and the administrator charged with 
responsibility for industrial education will do well to acquaint 
himself with the material so rapidly becoming available. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 151 

The question of proper types of schools which shall furnish 
industrial education has been considered of prime importance 
by the National Society and rightly so. As a general statement 
it is safe to say that cities of the first rank in size need all types 
of schools, chiefly as a means of experimentation at present to 
see through a fair competition of types which kind should be 
expanded or multiplied to meet major needs. The city of Boston 
has one or more schools of the following types : Prevocational 
schools for boys and girls of twelve years of age and over — in 
the elementary school stage of instruction ; day trade schools 
(separate) for boys and girls fourteen years of age and over; 
continuation schools — with prevocational programs — for work- 
ing boys and girls between fourteen and sixteen years of age ; 
co-operative industrial courses, in general high schools following 
the usual plan of alternate weeks in shop and school ; evening 
classes for men and women regularly employed in industrial 
occupations. We have not the type of trade extension continua- 
tion school found in Wisconsin by reason of the fact that we 
have no adequate law under which to operate the schools of this 
useful character. 

What is our experience showing us regarding the relative 
worth of these different kinds of schools? Chiefly that the 
schools are not competitive at all, but are supplementary to one 
another. Even when schools receive pupils at the same age one 
type will meet the needs of crtain young people and the other 
type of school is better suited to boys and girls with other 
necessities. The day industrial school and the co-operative in- 
dustrial courses may be taken for contrasted types for brief con- 
sideration. The day industrial school has the boy or girl wholly 
within its control, both for shop practice and for related instruc- 
tion; while the co-operative course connected with a general 
high school shares its burden on equal terms with industry. 
Though each of these two types of schools effects the same end 
with pupils of the same age and capacities they are both appar- 
ently necessary for rendering adequately available opportunities 
for industrial education. Those who know specifically the con- 
ditions in industry regarding apprenticeship or that beginning 
stage which is akin to it for which there is no recognized name, 
realize that co-operative relations between shop and school are 
difificult to establish under the best of conditions and difficult to 
administer when actually established. If we are to do something 



152 SELECTED ARTICLES 

in the way of industrial education without delay and render it 
available to a considerable number of boys and girls we cannot 
do it solely on the co-operative method. Ideally considered, 
the co-operative method seems to be the better plan ; it is cheaper 
in cost of instruction, less expensive in equipment and plant, and 
pedagogically more sound in that the objective side of the work 
has a basis which is exact and not imitative. Lacking all these 
superior advantages the day industrial school is at present the 
more useful type of school. As apprenticeship or something akin 
to it comes more and more back into industry, the day industrial 
school promises to lessen in importance and the co-operative 
course to gain in the same ratio. As far as we can see, however, 
from indications at all discoverable the day industrial school 
should exist as a type ; at least, until industry is radically differ- 
ent in character from what it is today. We have, perhaps, over 
emphasized the needs of industry in our discussions about indus- 
trial education. What about the child who wishes to enter in- 
dustry? Suppose that industry did maintain an apprenticeship 
system appreciably better than that at present obtaining. Indus- 
try under competitive conditions will seek the individual most 
naturally immediately adaptable and will reject the one who 
shows initial difficulty but who may under patience and sym- 
pathy prove eventually efficient. What agency will deal with the 
child on the basis of his own needs and aspirations? The child 
has the right to expect that some agency, social or other, may 
meet him half way. If democracy of opportunity for the child 
is to exist in industrial vocations something akin to the day in- 
dustrial school must be maintained as long as present conditions 
in industry persist. We may hope, however, that conditions in 
industry respecting apprenticeship will improve so that the less 
burdensome type of co-operative school may be substituted, but 
in the meantime the door of opportunity for the child must be 
kept open by means of the social agency known as the day indus- 
trial school. 

A brief experience in Boston with compulsory continuation 
schools for boys and girls between 14 and 16 years of age is 
giving interesting information hitherto not realized. After 
adopting an improved working certificate plan (1913) we found 
upon appraising results that several formerly undisputed assump- 
tions were not tenable. We found that we had much over-esti- 
mated the number of 14-16 children who are working; actually 
only one-sixth of this group leave school to go to work. An- 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION I53 

other assumption to the eiifect that children leave school in larg- 
est number at the age of 14 proved untrue. We found that chil- 
dren leave in equal numbers at 14, I4j4, 15 and I5>4. At 16 the 
greatest number leave school. The effect of the compulsory 
(optional by cities) continuation school law upon employment 
has been to decrease the number but slightly. Business and in- 
dustry in our section of the country for the past ten years have 
been gradually adjusting to a higher age of employment. Child 
labor legislation has been a factor in this movement. There are 
those who predict that the new minimum wage law will have a 
decided effect in reducing the number of workers between 14 
and 16. 

The boys and girls in our compulsory continuation schools 
number roughly about 4,000, and come from about 1,300 differ- 
ent employers. They come from every conceivable source of em- 
ployment, department stores, factories, printing establishments, 
messenger offices, and elsewhere. An analysis of the kind of 
service rendered by these boys and girls in their place of employ- 
ment shows that it is in reality messenger work of one kind or 
another. The boys perform this service in larger proportion 
than the girls — for the girl is employed in productive work at a 
distinctly younger age than the boy. 

Trade extension work for boys and girls in the continuation 
school is obviously impossible except for the few — mostly girls— 
because these boys and girls have usually no trade connections. 
Prevocational work, consequently forms an important part of 
the program. Through contacts with industry and through guid- 
ance on the part of the teachers in the school the young worker 
may form some adequate notion of what he would hke to do 
when he has reached the age which will enable him to secure 
employment of progressive trade or business character. The 
_ prevocational work of the continuation school may in its later 
stages approach the border line of trade preparatory instruction, 
but the time of instruction is too short to permit of definite re- 
sults of this character. All of the young workers are put into 
what is called general improvement classes upon entrance into 
the school, and after periods of from two to six weeks are sent 
to prevocational or to trade extension classes as their needs de- 
mand. Trade preparatory work to pupils in the out-of-work 
group can be profitably given when limited to one-process work 
such as simple power machine operating for girls. 

General improvement work simply means the three R's of 



154 SELECTED ARTICLES 

the grades but motivated so that the boy or girl who failed to 
respond to this work in the grades may see it in a new light ; 
the work is, furthermore, individualized so that the pupil may 
realize that we are trying to assist him in his needs and not 
seeking to make him absorb a course of study. The problem of 
the continuation school for children between 14 and 16 is far 
more social in character than industrial ; but the continuation 
school may play an important part in the general problem of ad- 
justment of the young person to industry. The conditions of 
success for continuation schools are fully as critical as for in- 
dustrial schools, but, here, a different set of causes obtain. The 
main factors must be given great attention in establishing con- 
tinuation schools. One of these is the working child himself, 
and the other is the social and industrial environment into which 
the working child has suddenly been projected. Our regular 
schools will not be successful in an attempt to undertake this 
work without far-reaching readjustments. The working child 
has more often than not left the regular school because of his 
failure to respond to the methods and resources there obtaining. 
The size of divisions, elasticity of programs, specially selected and 
instructed teachers, expert and competent directors are essential 
elements for a successful undertaking of the work of continua- 
tion schools. In Boston, teachers of prevocational and industrial 
work are chosen by the same method as are teachers in industrial 
schools. Teachers of non-vocational work are chosen from the 
regular day schools, but they are selected on the basis of special 
fitness and are given training in the theory and practice of con- 
tinuation school instruction for a period of one year preceding 
the assumption of the new duties incident to continuation school 
instruction. 

At whatever angle we view our complex and rather unstable 
social structure to-day we see in prospect, change, adjustment 
and new conditions. Not one of our social forces toward which 
human hopes and fears turn but is face to face with a problem 
of stress and effort. The question of industrial education is 
simply one of the many and gigantic problems demanding prompt 
and courageous endeavor. In an era of preparedness — not only 
military but industrial and social — those of us who serve in the 
seemingly unmilitary side of activity have a place and impor- 
tance in svirvival and supremacy no less essential than those who 
march in serried tread and bear the glittering weapons symboliz- 
ing national security and might. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 155 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION' 

To many of us the questions of the so-called dual or unit 
control are not fundamental at all. The fundamental questions 
are, first, as to what constitutes sound pedagogic theories as 
to the aims and methods suited to vocational education in schools, 
and secondty, the most effective organization and administration 
of the means designed to realize them. There are fewer mys- 
terious and uncertain features in vocational education, whether 
carried on by school or by other agencies, when such education 
is rightly interpreted and defined, than in the fields of the so- 
called general or liberal education. Vocational education — not as 
carried on in schools, of course — is the oldest as well as even 
yet the most widely distributed form of education of all, since all 
grown men and women have always had vocations for which, with 
some measure of purposiveness, they have been trained in the 
home, the field, the workshop, the commercial establishment or on 
shipboard. Vocational education is, irreducibly and without un- 
necessary mystification, education for the pursuit of an occupation. 
In all stages of social development men have always sought, with 
more or less conscious method, to train their youth efficiently to 
follow a vocation — to hunt, fight, fish, farm, work metals, weave, 
bake, trade, transport, teach, heal, lead in worship or to govern. 
Vocational education is not all of education — never was that fact 
more clearly recognized than to-day; but vocational education at 
the right time and of the right kind is supremely important — and 
of that fact we have recently been in danger of losing sight. 
Hence questions as to what constitutes right vocational educa- 
tion, when and by whom it shall be given, and how it shall be 
effectively correlated with other forms of education, are just now 
of the greatest importance. 

It has long been recognized that vocational education for many 
of the leading callings could no longer be successfully carried on 
by the historic methods of apprenticeship. Hence have appeared 
in succession vocational schools for the training of lawyers, the- 
ologians, military leaders, physicians, pharmacists, dentists, teach- 
ers, engineers, navigators, accountants, architects, telegraphers, 
stenographers and many others. Vocational schools for delin- 

* From Comment on John Dewey's article, by David Snedden. New 
Republic. 3:40-2. May 15, 1915. 



156 SELECTED ARTICLES 

quents and for children without homes were organized many j'ears 
ago by philanthropists. More recently the state itself has entered 
this field. In many of our cities far-sighted men have been active 
in establishing vocational trade schools as a means of extending 
educational opportunities. 

Now, many of us have been forced, and often reluctantly, to 
the conclusion that if we are to have vocational education for 
the rank and file of our youth as well as for the favored classes, 
we shall be obliged to provide special vocational schools for this 
purpose, because the historic agencies of apprenticeship training 
have in most cases become less rather than more effective as 
means of sound vocational education. A few industries are in- 
deed still so organized as to be able to give good vocational edu- 
cation, and it may be that as a result of movements now taking 
place others will readjust themselves so that in them workers can 
be assured of progressive development of their capacities. 

But in general, modern economic conditions are such as to 
impair rather than enhance the capacity of employers to give 
satisfactory vocational training. The mobility of labor has 
enormously increased in the western world, and more particularly 
in America. Competition among the various units of a given in- 
dustry has, with rare exceptions, become keener, and the success 
of a given employer is often dependent upon his abilit}' to attract 
immigrant labor or to lure skilled workmen away from his com- 
petitors. American manufacturers have long been accustomed to 
await a supply of foremen and competent workmen from Euro- 
pean countries. Western railroads by paying higher wages at- 
tract firemen, engineers and mechanics away from Eastern roads. 
The city emploj'er tempts country-trained hands. 

There are some indications that a wise cooperation among em- 
ployers, now beginning to be manifested in certain fields, will soon 
remedy this condition of affairs. Already the printers of America 
have joined forces to establish vocational schools for their ap- 
prentices. Railroads are stealing workmen from each other far 
less than formerly, and some of them now systematically train 
their own workmen. A few large manufacturers have established 
successful schools for machinists. But it is not yet clear just how 
far this movement can be carried, in view of the competitive con- 
ditions still persisting in such fields as the building trades, the 
manufacture of textiles, the food-packing industries and numer- 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION I57 

ous smaller lines of manufacture. It is hardly to be expected 
that government can effectively force all employers to cooperate 
in the important function of training workers. 

The function of the state in this as in other fields of educa- 
tion is clear. The state should consider the good of the indi- 
vidual and the needs of society, and where private agencies can- 
not accomplish a desired end the collective action of the state 
must be enlisted for this purpose. This is fundamentally the 
reason why the various commonwealths of the United States 
now, in greater or less degree, assist such special forms of 
vocational education as engineering, agriculture and even law 
and medicine. Massachusetts, usually conservative as regards 
state support of higher schools, nevertheless maintains a free 
agricultural college, makes large contributions towards engineer- 
ing education, and supports three schools designed for the train- 
ing of leaders in the textile industries. 

In the light of recent experience it cannot be successfully 
contended that the state is unable to establish and maintain suc- 
cessful vocational schools for the various trades, for farming, 
for home-making, and for the different commercial pursuits. 
The pedagogic problems to be encountered are doubtless many 
and difficult and are made doubly so by the academic preposses- 
sions of the men who are likely to be put in charge of these 
vocational schools. It is not yet clear how economically state- 
supported vocational education can be administered, nor is it 
in every case demonstrated that it is expedient, as a matter of 
social policy, to have the state or the nation support such schools. 
But the time has passed when the feasibility of such training 
could be questioned. 

When and under what conditions a youth should be per- 
mitted to enter a vocational school is yet debatable. In Massa- 
chusetts the law carefully provides that a youth shall be eligible 
to enter a vocational school only at the time when he is equally 
eligible to leave the regular public schools and to become a fac- 
tory or farm hand. The administrative theory under which Mas- 
sachusetts vocational schools are being conducted assumes that 
the youth ready to embark on wage-earning who instead turns 
aside for a period in a vocational school, should be able to 
concentrate his efforts largely in learning the occupation selected. 
It is not desirable to blend so-called liberal and vocational edu- 



IS8 SELECTED ARTICLES 

cation at this period, it being always within the possibilities of 
the youth to continue in the regular or general elementary or 
high school if he so elects. 

It is sometimes asserted that vocational education given by 
schools under state support is beneficial chiefly to employers. It 
is incredible that men acquainted with the economic conditions 
of our time, the competition of employers for labor and the mobil- 
ity of labor itself, should take this view. In every occupation 
in the country there is constant competition for superior ability, 
as is manifested in the varying wage rates usually found. The 
only sound point of view is to regard vocational education as 
being primarily of significance to the boys and girls concerned, 
and ultimately, of course, to society as a whole. If vocational 
education does not result in greater productive capacity and if 
greater productive capacity does not result in a larger share to 
the laborer, then, indeed, are the times very much out of joint. 

The question of so-called dual versus unit control is merely 
one of securing the greatest efficiency. In most states we al- 
ready have the dual control, if we wish so to style it, of our 
various special vocational schools of agriculture, industrial train- 
ing for delinquents, etc. In point of fact there can be no such 
thing as ultimate dual control of any stated type of school, since 
administrative bodies must owe their creation to some single 
state agency, such as the legislature, the governor as authorized 
by the legislature, or local administrative agencies as created by 
legislative enactment. Such so-called dual control as one finds 
in Wisconsin or as it existed in Massachusetts from 1906 toigio, 
simply represents an attempt to put in immediate charge of a 
special form of education a group of persons who are primarily 
interested in its successful development, and who may be able 
to bring it to the point of view of practical men in that field, 
Business men generally are suspicious of the so-called academic 
mind in connection with vocational education. They feel as- 
sured neither of the friendliness nor of the competency of our 
schoolmasters in developing sound industrial education. For that 
reason they often favor some form of partially separate control, 
at least at the outset of any new experiment. 

If vocational education is to be successfully established in 
those states where academic tradition strongly persists, it may 
prove absolutely essential that some form of separate control 
should, at least temporarily, be inaugurated with a view to ob- 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 159 

taining best results. School men, however well-intentioned, are 
apt to be impractical and to fail to appreciate actual conditions. 
Some successful beginnings of vocational education of the 
kind discussed in this paper have been made in Massachusetts. 
The present stage of development would not have been reached if 
it had not been for the activities of the Commission on Industrial 
Education during the years 1906 to 1910. The ultimate merger 
of this body with the Board of Education may have represented 
what should happen in every state after particular forms of 
development have arrived at some degree of maturity. 



CO-OPERATION OF AGENCIES' 

The several studies of vocational education show the need of 
such training for both boys and girls, while making clear the 
dangers to be avoided and the way to avoid them. A really suc- 
cessful vocational educational system is possible of attainment 
only by means of the hearty co-operation of both employers and 
employees with the public. Employers and employees are the 
best judges of the kind of industrial instruction needed and 
whether it can best be given in the pubUc school or in the shop. 
Such studies as the "Vocational Education Survey" of Richmond, 
Va., which constitutes Bulletin 162 of the Bureau of Labor 
Statistics are needed in other cities, to furnish the basis of facts 
for the right kind of vocational education. 



INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION AND THE 
AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR'' 

An argument, I take it, is not required of me in support of 
industrial education, nor any exposition of the purposes or ideals 
of industrial education. You know what industrial education is 
and what are its purposes and ideals. The question in your minds 
is perhaps with reference to myself as a representative of organ- 

1 From "Work of the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics in Its Relation 
to the Business of the Country," by Royal Meeker. Annals of the Ameri- 
can Academy. 63:269. June, 1916. 

2 By Samuel Gompers. Manual Training and Vocational Education. 16: 
329-39. February, 19 15. 



i6o SELECTED ARTICLES 

ized labor. Do I know what industrial education is, and what 
are its purposes and ideals? But as my personal knowledge is 
of very little consequence to anyone, except as a sort of reflex of 
the knowledge of the millions of workers, the question is, in 
fact, does organized labor understand what industrial education 
is, and what are its purposes and ideals? Finally, if it does 
understand these purposes and ideals, does it approve of them? 
And will it cooperate sincerely in the development of tried and 
proven rational schemes of industrial education? 

A great part of my life and energy has been devoted to com- 
bating wrong-headed notions about the attitude of organized 
labor with reference to every sort of social and economic ques- 
tion. These questions have increased in number and in variety 
with the development of industrial civilization. The need for 
efficient industrial education for our boys and girls is now more 
urgent than ever before. Nor is the need of educational training 
for greater efficiency confined to the factory or the shops ; it is 
manifest in the home life, and in demands for instruction in 
domestic economy. The factory system and modern industrial 
organization have resulted in such high specialization that only 
what have been referred to tonight as the tag-ends of industry 
have been left to women in the homes, and in modern industrial 
establishments the subdivision of labor has gone on to such a 
degree that workers perform the same set task a thousand, or 
ten thousand, or a hundred thousand times a day. The same 
task is automatically repeated again and again without knowledge 
of its relation to the rest of the industry for the sole purpose of 
gaining time and speed. I repeat that if ever industrial educa- 
tion was essential it is essential today. We cannot turn back the 
wheels of industry, but we can make the knowledge and the 
effectiveness of the workers such that they will have some com- 
prehension of the entire article produced and of every branch of 
the production. 

In the work I have sometimes felt that the presumption is 
always against labor — that it is always assumed as a matter ot 
course that labor is by a sort of "natural depravity" and strange 
blindness, opposed to everything, including everything that is for 
its own interest. Sometimes it is assumed that this opposition 
is due to pernicious temperament on the part of labor leaders, 
and sometimes that it is due to simple ignorance and incapacity to 
understand complex social conditions. The workers are essen- 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION i6i 

tially honest and sincere, and let me assure you, the degree of 
their ignorance is not so great as the presumptuous and super- 
cilious often assume it to be. 

It may be difficult to cram into twenty minutes' time all that 
may be necessary to say with reference to the attitude of organ- 
ized labor toward industrial education, but I shall endeavor to 
comply with the limit set. 

You should know that organized labor does not oppose the 
development of industrial education in the public schools. In- 
deed, that would not at all fairly indicate the attitude of organ- 
ized labor. I say to you that the organizations constituting the 
American Federation of Labor have been for years engaged in 
the work of systematically providing industrial education to their 
members. This instruction has been given thru the medium of 
the trade union journal and schools established and maintained 
by them. Organized labor, I repeat, is not opposed to industrial 
education. It is eager to cooperate actively in instituting indus- 
trial education in our public schools. The workingman has too 
little time, and can therefore take but little interest in any other 
sort of education. 

You will agree with me that there is absolutely no reason 
why labor, organized or unorganized, should oppose the sort of 
industrial education proposed here in Richmond, and I can assure 
you that labor does not oppose anything without good reason. 
When it has good reason to oppose so many things why should 
it oppose anything without reason? 

Need to Distinguish between Public and Private Interest 

Organized labor has opposed and will continue to oppose some 
enterprises which have been undertaken in the name of industrial 
education. It has opposed and will continue to oppose the ex- 
ploitation of the laborer even when the exploitation is done under 
the name of industrial education. It may continue to regard with 
indifference, if not with suspicion, some private schemes of indus- 
trial education. With regard to such enterprises where they are 
instituted by employers, organized labor is from Missouri — it 
will have to be shown that the given enterprise is not a means of 
exploiting labor — a means of depressing wages by creating an 
over supply of labor in certain narrow fields of employment. 

Organized labor cannot favor any scheme of industrial edu- 



l62 SELECTED ARTICLES 

cation which is lop-sided — any scheme, that is to say, which will 
bring trained men into any given trade without regard to the de- 
mand for labor in that trade. Industrial education must main- 
tain a fair and proper apportionment of the supply of labor power 
to the demand for labor power in every line of work. Other- 
wise its advantages will be entirely neutralised. If, for example, 
the result of industrial education is to produce in any community 
a greater number of trained machinists than are needed in the 
community, those machinists which have been trained cannot de- 
rive any benefit from their training, since they will not be able 
to find employment except at economic disadvantages. Under 
these conditions industrial education is of no advantage to those 
who have received it, and it is a distinct injury to the journeymen 
working at the trade who are subjected to a keen competition 
artificially produced. Industrial education must reach the needs 
of the worker as well as the requirements of the employer. 

I can see that in some respects the most difficult task before 
industrial education is that of maintaining an equilibrium of 
supply and demand of efficient artisans, and equilibrium as nearly 
perfect as is physically possible. How shall this most difficult 
problem be solved? How shall such an equilibrium of labor 
supply and demand be maintained and industrial education be 
entirely freed from any suspicion of working injury to labor by 
causing a maladjustment of supply to demand? 

The answer to these questions seems obvious. There is in my 
opinion only one way to avoid the difficulty, only one way in 
which to avoid the danger of working serious injury to labor — 
working injury in spite of the very best intentions to benefit 
labor. The only way to avoid working an injury to labor under 
the name of industrial education is to find out what is the demand 
for labor in a community. In a word, it seems to me the only 
safe basis for understanding industrial education in any com- 
munity is the basis which, as I understand, has been established 
here in Richmond. Industrial education should be in every in- 
stance based upon a survey of the industries of the community — 
upon an accumulation of facts regarding the employments in the 
community. Upon such a basis the public schools may properly 
proceed to provide for the particular industrial needs of the com- 
munity, and with such an accumulation of data in hand there 
can be no excuse if industrial education does not prove to be of 
undoubted benefit to labor and to the community. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 163 

Industrial education comes close to the life and happiness of 
labor. It involves the means of livelihood for the workingman. 
The test of efficiency of industrial education is wage-earning 
power — not simply increase in efficiency of labor to produce. It 
is perfectly possible for industrial education, even when provided 
by the public schools, if it is not organized with regard to the 
industrial needs of the community, to increase the productivity 
and efficiency of certain groups of labor and at the same time 
to reduce the wage-earning power of the laborer in those groups. 
There is nothing mysterious in this. It would result from the 
working of a universal economic law. To the extent that indus- 
trial education is not precisely adapted to the needs of the com- 
munity, it will tend to have exactly this result, namely, it will in- 
crease the productive efficiency of certain groups of labor and by 
bringing into these groups an oversupply of labor will tend to 
economic deterioration. 

I can assure you that no disposition will be found anj'where 
among workingmen to oppose this effort to make our schools 
more democratic in serving the real bread-and-butter needs of the 
community. 

Let me tell you further that labor — organized labor — has 
been active for years to secure this end, active in its efforts to 
make the public schools do precisely that which some misin- 
formed people even think labor opposes. In 1903 the American 
Federation of Labor at its annual convention appointed a com- 
mittee on education. What sort of education interested the dele- 
gates of that convention? It was not that education which deals 
with the syntax of dead languages ; it was not even the education 
which deals with the development of the fine arts, or with the 
systematic teaching of the science. These are all of them legiti- 
mate ends of education and the American Federation of Labor 
approves of these educational ends, but the sort of education 
which the American Federation of Labor was particularly in- 
terested in, and the sort of education which was under considera- 
tion when this committee on education was appointed in 1903, was 
industrial education. This was more than a decade ago and 
during the entire period which has elapsed since the appointment 
of the committee the American Federation of Labor has been 
active in fostering and furthering every legitimate enterprise for 
the industrial education of workers. 

I will ask Mr. Prosser how long the National Society for the 



i64 SELECTED ARTICLES 

Promotion for Industrial Education has been working in this 
field. (Mr. Prosser answered "About eight years.") We have been 
working for industrial education for more than a decade. This 
committee appointed in 1903 was to consider what the trade 
unions themselves could do to make up for the deficiency of the 
public schools. The trade unions whose members paid taxes to 
support the public schools were not getting from those schools 
the sort of education which they needed to enable them to become 
skilled, efficient, and better paid workingmen. 

They were getting, in so far as they got anything at all, a sort 
of education which had for them very little value, and they there- 
fore took under consideration the possibility of organizing a 
scheme of education which would be of value to them. 

Now when the public schools come forward with a proposi- 
tion to provide the sort of education needed by the workingmen, 
do you think that they are going to oppose that undertaking? I 
do not think so. In fact I know that they will welcome any such 
development. 

Official Action by The Federation. 

In 1904 another committee on education was appointed, and 
again in 1905 another committee, and again in 1906. In 1907 the 
A. F. of L. at its annual convention resolved that "we do en- 
dorse any policy or any society (this I may state included and 
had special reference to the National Society for the Promotion 
of Industrial Education) or association, having for its object the 
raising the standard of industrial education and the teaching of 
the higher technic of our various industries." 

The committee to which this resolution was referred reported 
it "decided to record itself in favor of the best opportunities for 
the most complete and best industrial and technical training ob- 
tainable," and it recommended an investigation of industrial 
school systems. 

In 1906 the committee on education tested "with satisfaction 
the splendid progress accomplished by the Executive Council 
along the lines of industrial education," and submitted to the 
convention a set of resolutions in which it stated that "industrial 
education is necessary and inevitable for the progress of an in- 
dustrial people." 

Industrial education was before the convention of 1909, at 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION i6s 

which time I myself stated in my report that the A. F. of L. 
favored pubHc industrial education, and opposed only narrowly 
specialized training under the control of private interests. Or- 
ganized labor has always opposed and will continue to oppose 
sham industrial education, whether at public or private expense. 
It has opposed and will continue to oppose that superficial 
training which confers no substantial benefit upon the worker, 
which does not make him a craftsman, but only an interloper, 
who may be available in times of crisis, perhaps, as a strike 
breaker, but not as a trained artisan for industrial service at 
other times. Industrial education must train men for work not 
for private and sinister corporation purposes. 

I refer to this by way of explaining what it is that has at 
times in the past aroused labor's opposition to what has been un- 
fairly called industrial education. It will be found that wher- 
ever labor has opposed what has been put forth as industrial 
education, the enterprise called industrial education has been 
something entirely different from that which Richmond is insti- 
tuting in its public schools today. 

To the 1909 convention of the American Federation of Labor 
I took pleasure in submitting this : "That since technical educa- 
tion of the workers in trade and industry is a public necessity it 
should not be a private, but a public function, conducted by the 
public and the expense involved at public cost." You people in 
Richmond are doing today precisely what the committee of the 
A. F. of L. recommended five years ago should be done. 

In 191 1 the A. F. of L. came forward in support of a bill in 
Congress providing for national aid in establishing vocational 
education in the public schools of the country. Since that 
date up to the present time the A. F. of L. has consistently, per- 
sistently, and unremittingly advocated the establishment of in- 
dustrial education in the public schools. 

The sort of industrial education which Richmond is institu- 
ting is the one and the only sort of industrial education which 
can enlist the sincere cooperation of trade unionists and should 
receive the cooperation of employers as well. It is equally to the 
interest of the employers as of labor, that workingmen shall be 
trained for real efficiency. The efficient worker produces more 
and by virtue of his efficiency makes for a higher economic, in- 
dustrial, commercial, and social development. I believe that the 
welfare of labor depends to a very large extent upon the develop- 



i66 SELECTED ARTICLES 

ment of industrial education, and that in this case at least, the 
welfare of the employer, and of the community is equally in- 
volved with that of the workingman. In the matter of industrial 
education there is absolutely no controversy between labor and 
the employers of labor — provided always that the industrial edu- 
cation is what it purports to be — industrial education, organized 
by the public schools for the benefit of the youth of the com- 
munity. Organized labor represents the fathers and mothers of 
the youths, and the fathers and mothers are not going to oppose 
the best interests of their own children. 

Those who wish documentary proof that organized labor has 
for years been actively agitating for the institution of industrial 
education in the public schools, I shall be very glad to provide 
with such proofs. They are spread through the annual reports 
of every covention held by the A. F. of L. beginning with that of 
1903 and including that of 1914. In 1910 the Federation pub- 
lished a preliminary Report on Industrial Education, and in 
1912 a full report of its Committee on Industrial Education, ap- 
proved in conformity with a resolution of the convention held in 
Denver in 1908. 

Education and Industrial Competition. 

Let us approach this question from an entirely different angle 
in order to bring out clearly labor's interest in the development 
of industrial education. 

American industries are producing in competition with the 
industries established in other countries. In normal times, when 
these other countries are not engaged in warring upon one an- 
other with wonderfully ingenious and effective instruments of 
wholesale murder, they are none the less strenuously engaged in 
a warfare of industrial competition. I use the word "warfare" 
in this connection because no other word seems adequately to 
sum up the strains and rivalries of industrial competition be- 
tween nations, but I would not wish you to assume that I think 
that there is any very close analogy between the conflicts of or- 
ganized militant wholesale murder and the contests of industrial 
education. Industrial rivalry is beneficent, not malign; it is a 
condition of social progress, not of rapine and destruction. 

Industrial competition and rivalry is a condition of improv- 
ing material welfare, and of advancing civilization. In a word. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 167 

industrial competition is a warfare of progress, and in this war- 
fare no nation can maintain its industrial supremacy, nor can 
any nation insure the progressive improvement in the material 
welfare of its people, which does not adopt the most effective 
devices of the industrial world struggle. 

It is well known to you, who are all of you informed regard- 
ing the development of industrial education, that this sort of 
education has been adopted very generally by those nations with 
which the people of the United States — the workingman as well 
as the employer of labor — must compete. Industrial education 
of the workers, even extending to workers in the unskilled em- 
ployments, has been, for example, Germany's chief method of 
industrial conquest. With this means Germany has entered not 
only foreign markets, but even our own domestic market in many 
lines. What does that trade mark with which we have all be- 
come so familiar in recent years "Made in Germany" mean? It 
means simply industrial education of the workers of Germany. 
Largely by virtue of that education, Germany has been able to 
produce commodities and to place them in our own markets, and 
in many cases has been able to displace the American product. 

This successful competition of Germany does not mean that 
Germany has depended upon cheap labor to enable her to pro- 
duce cheaply. We can compete with cheap labor in any line, 
because cheap labor is in fact, and in the last analysis not cheap 
labor at all. On the contrary, it is the most expensive and least 
profitable labor. No community which depends on cheap labor 
in the sense of underpaid labor can win out in international 
competition against a nation which depends upon intelligent, 
thoroly trained labor. Thoroly trained labor produces cheaply 
not because it is underpaid but because it is efficient. And thoroly 
trained efficient labor can demand high wages because of its 
intelligence, efficiency and organization. 

Is it not clearly to the interest of the workingmen of the 
United States that they should be put upon the same level of 
competition as that occupied by workingmen of foreign countries 
with whom they must compete? Are not the workingmen vitally 
interested in maintaining American industries in competition 
with foreign industries? If these industries decline it is the 
American workingman who is thrown into the ranks of the un- 
employed — the American artisan who is depressed into the ranks 
of the unskilled. In this process the standard of skilled labor is 



i68 SELECTED ARTICLES 

degraded and unskilled labor is subjected to a new sort of com- 
petition which inevitably weakens its condition. The process of 
industrial progress is reversed. Instead of making the skilled 
workman more skilled and at the same time lifting the unskilled 
worker into the ranks of the skilled, the skilled worker is forced 
down into the congested mass of unskilled labor. 

Perhaps, however, even this deterioration of labor is not the 
chief consideration. No civilized nation can maintain its self- 
respect on any other basis than that of competing in industrial 
rivalry on the basis, not of ignorance but of intelligence, on the 
basis not of cheap labor but of efficient, well trained labor, on 
the basis not of brute manual labor, but of skill and proficiency. 

We do not wish to compete with Europe as the Chinese com- 
pete with the whole world. We could not do that and retain our 
self-respect. We could not do that without adopting Chinese 
methods of work which would mean a minimum of rest and 
food, no recreation, and a maximum of hours of labor. If we 
are not willing to adopt Chinese methods, we must adopt weap- 
ons of industrial progress which have enabled European nations 
to advance in material welfare in competition, not only with the 
Orient, but more especially in competition with the United 
States, and with other countries in which have been available as 
a basis of industrial development vast natural resources. The 
period is almost past when the United States can depend upon 
cheap raw materials obtained with comparatively little labor 
from its mines and virgin fields. It is entering a period when it 
must depend upon the equalities of human labor. Under these 
conditions industrial decline is the only alternative to industrial 
education. Do you think that organized labor is going to advo- 
cate a policy of industrial decline — a policy of competing on a 
basis of cheap labor, instead of trained and efficient labor? Do 
you think it is going to advocate the adoption of Chinese meth- 
ods in its competition with Europe? I can assure you that the 
American workingman will not accept any such solution of the 
problem. He will insist that competition will not be upon the 
basis of cheap brute labor, but of efficient intelligent skilled labor, 
which means that he will in the future, as he has done in the 
past, insist that the instruction in our public schools be made 
democratic; in a word that the public schools generally shall in- 
stitute industrial education, and that that education shall be based 
upon an exhaustive study of the industries to determine what 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 169 

sort of industrial training is required and is most conducive to 
the physical, mental, material, and social welfare of the workers, 
the community, and that which holds out the best hope for 
America's workers, her citizenship, the perpetuity of our repub- 
lic, and fulfilment of its mission as the leader in the humani- 
tarianism of the world. 



INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION FOR GIRL'S' 

If we wish to know the special demands of working-women 
there is no way so certain as to consult the organized women. 
They alone are at liberty to express their views, while the educa- 
tion they have had in their unions in handling questions vital to 
their interests as wage-earners, and as leaders of other women, 
gives clearness and definiteness to the expression of those views. 

If organized women can best represent the wage-earners of 
their sex, we can gain the best collective statement of their wishes 
through them. At the last convention of the National Women's 
Trade Union League in June, 1913, the subject of industrial edu- 
cation received very close attention. The importance of continu- 
ation schools after wage-earning days have commenced was not 
overlooked. An abstract of the discussion and the chief resolu- 
tions can be found in the issue of Life and Labor for August, 

1913- 

After endorsing the position taken up by the American Feder- 
ation of Labor, the women went on to urge educational authori- 
ties to arm the children, while yet at school, with a knowledge 
of the state and federal laws enacted for their protection, and 
asked also "that such a course shall be of a nature to equip the 
boy and girl with a full sense of his or her responsibility for 
seeing that the laws are enforced," the reason being that the yearly 
influx of young boys and girls into the industrial world in entire 
ignorance of their own state laws is one of the most menacing 
facts we have to face, as their ignorance and inexperience make 
exploitation easy, and weaken the force of such protective legis- 
lation as we have. 

Yet another suggestion was that "no working certificates be 

1 From "Trade Union Woman," by Alice Henry. Copyright 1915. by D. 
Appleton and Company. 



170 SELECTED ARTICLES 

issued to a boy or girl unless he or she has passed a satisfactory 
examination in the laws which have been enacted by the state 
for their protection." 

In making these claims, organized working-women are keep- 
ing themselves well in line with the splendid statement of princi- 
ples enunciated by that great educator John Dewey : 

The ethical responsibility of the school on the social side must be inter- 
preted in the broadest and freest spirit; it is equivalent to that training of 
the child which will give him such possession of himself that he may take 
charge of himself; may not only adapt himself to the changes that are 
going on, but have power to shape and direct them. 

When wc ask for coeducation on vocational lines, the ques- 
tion is sure to come up : For how long is a girl likely to use her 
training in a wage-earning occupation? It is continually asserted 
and assumed she will on the average remain in industry but a 
few years. The mature woman as a wage-earner, say the woman 
over twenty-five, we have been pleased to term and to treat as an 
exception which may be ignored in great general plans. Especially 
has this been so in laying out schemes for vocational training, 
and we find the girl being ignored, not only on the usual ground 
that she is a girl, but for the additional, and not-to-be-questioned 
reason that it will not pay to give her instruction in any variety 
of skilled trades, because she will be but a short time in any oc- 
cupation of the sort. Hence this serves to increase the already 
undue emphasis placed upon dr)mestic training as all that a girl 
needs, and all that her parents or the community ought to expect 
her to have. This is the only one of the many cases when we 
try to solve our new problems by reasoning based upon conditions 
that have passed or that are passing away. 

In this connection some startling facts have been brought 
forward by Dr. Leonard P. Ayres in the investigations conducted 
by him for the Russell Sage Foundation. He tried to find the 
ages of all the women who are following seven selected occupa- 
tions in cities of the United States of over 50,000 population. 
The occupations chosen were those in which the number of 
women workers exceeds one for every thousand of the popula- 
tion. The number of women covered was 857,743, and is just 
half of all the women engaged in gainful employment in those 
cities. The seven occupations listed are housekeeper, nursemaid, 
laundress, saleswoman, teacher, dressmaker, and servant. No less 
than forty-four per cent of the housekeepers are between twenty- 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 171 

five and forty-five. Of dressmakers there are fifty-one per cent 
betvv^een these two ages; of teachers fifty-eight per cent; of laun- 
dresses forty-nine per cent, vv^hile the one occupation of which a 
little more than half are under twenty-five years is that of sales- 
woman, and even here there are barely sixty-one per cent, leaving 
the still considerable proportion of thirty-nine per cent of sales- 
women over the age of twenty-five. It is pretty certain that these 
mature women have given more than the favorite seven years to 
their trade. It is to be regretted that the investigation was not 
made on lines which would have included some of the factory 
occupations. It is difficult to see why it did not. Under any 
board classification there must be more garment-workers, for in- 
stance, in New York or Chicago, than there are teachers. How- 
ever, we have reason to be grateful for the fine piece of work 
which Dr. Ayres has done here. 

The Survey, in an editorial, also quotes in refutation of the 
seven-year theory, the findings of the commission which inquired 
into the pay of teachers in New York. The commissioners found 
that forty-four per cent of the women teachers in the public 
schools had been in the service for ten years or more, and that 
only twenty-five per cent of the men teachers had served as long 
a term. 

It can hardly he doubted that the tendency is towards the 
lengthening of the wage-earning life of the working-woman. A 
number of factors affect the situation, about most of which we 
have yet little definite information. There is first, the gradual 
passing of the household industries out of the home. Those 
women, for whom the opportunity to be thus employed no longer 
is open, tend to take up or to remain longer in wage-earning oc- 
cupations. 

The changing status of the married woman, her increasing 
economic independence and its bearing upon her economic re- 
sponsibility, are all facts having an influence upon woman as a 
wage-earning member of the community, but how, and in what 
degree, they affect her length of service, is still quite uncertain. 
It is probable too, that they affect the employment or non-em- 
ployment of women very differently in different occupations, but 
how, and in what degre they do so is mere guess-work at 
present. 

If there has ever been voiced a tenderer plea for a universal 
education that shall pass by no child, boy or girl, than that of 



172 SELECTED ARTICLES 

Stitt Wilson, former Socialist Mayor of Berkeley, I do not know 
it. If there has ever been outlined a finer ideal of an education 
fitting the child, every child, to take his place and fill his place 
in the new world opening before him, I have not heard of it. 
He asks that we shoui \ submit ourselves to the leadership of the 
child — his needs, his capacities, his ideal hungers — and in so 
doing we shall answer many of the most disturbing and difficult 
problems that perplex our twentieth century civilization. Even 
in those states which make the best attempt at educating their 
children, from three-fourths to nine-tenths, according to the lo- 
cality, leave the schools at the age of thirteen or fourteen, and 
the present quality of the education given from the age of twelve 
to sixteen is neither an enrichment in culture, nor a training for 
life and livelihood. It is too brief for culture, and is not in- 
tended for vocation. 

Mr. Wilson makes no compromise with existing conditions; 
concedes not one point to the second-rate standards that we 
supinely accept; faces the question of cost, that basic difficulty 
which most theoretical educators waive aside, and which the 
public never dreams of trying to meet and overcome. Here are 
some of his proposals. 

The New Education (he writes) will include training and experience in 
domestic science, cookery and home-making; agriculture and horticulture, 
pure and applied science, and mechanical and commercial activities with 
actual production, distribution and exchange of commodities. Such training 
for three to six millions of both sexes from the age of twelve to twenty-one 
years will require land, tools, buildings of various types, machinery, fac- 
tory sites by rail and water, timber, water and power sources. 

As all civilization is built upon the back of labor, and as all culture and 
leisure rests upon labor, and is not possible otherwise, so all cultural and 
liberal education, as generally understood, shall be sequent to the produc- 
tive and vocational. The higher intellectual education should grow out 
of and be earned by productive vocational training. 

Hence our schools should be surrounded by lands of the best quality 
obtainable, plots of lo, 50, 100 and more acres. These lands should be 
the scene of labor that would be actually productive and not mere play. In 
such a school the moral elements of labor should be primary, viz.: joy to 
the producer, through industry and art; perfect honesty in quality of mate- 
rial and character of workmanship; social cooperative, mutualism and fel- 
lowship among the workers or students; and last, but not least, justice — 
that is, the full product of labor being secured to the producer. 

He plans to make the schools largely self-supporting, partly 
through land endowments easier to obtain under the system of 
taxation of land values that is possibly near at hand in the 
Golden State, for which primarily the writer is planning. The 
other source of income would be from the well-directed labor 
of the students themselves, particularly the older ones. He quotes 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION I73 

Professor Frank Lawrence Glynn, of the Vocational School at 
Albany, New York, as having found that the average youth can, 
not by working outside of school hours, but in the actual process 
of getting his own education, earn two dollars a week and up- 
ward. Elsewhere, Mr. Wilson shows that the beginning of such 
schools are to be found in operation today, in some of the best 
reform institutions of the country. 



TRADE AGREEMENTS AND 
INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION' 

The term "trade agreement" is applied to all those arrange- 
ments under which the conditions of employment are governed 
by an agreement made between an employer or an association of 
employers and a union of which the employees are members. 
Such agreements prevail over a considerable part of American 
industry. Exactly what part of the workmen are covered by the 
systems of trade agreements cannot be stated since no census has 
ever been taken. The nearest approximation is the number of 
persons who are organized into trade unions. Since the policy of 
far the larger part of American trade unions is to replace in- 
dividual bargaining by trade agreements, the number of trade 
unionists tends to approach the number of those covered by such 
agreements. But the two are not identical. In the first place, a 
considerable part of the trade unionists are working in establish- 
ments in which the union is not as yet able to establish trade 
agreements. In some unions the numbers of members so work- 
ing is very small, so that it may fairly be said that the entire 
membership is working under joint agreements. In other unions, 
where, perhaps, a vigilant and hostile employers' association 
exists, or where a strike has recently been lost with the dis- 
organization of the union as the result, the number of mem.bers 
working under a system of individual bargaining pure and sim- 
ple may be considerable. On the other hand, in a number of in- 
dustries and trades where the union shop is not enforced, but 
where the conditions of employment are set by trade agreement, 

1 By George E. Barnett, Professor of Statistics, Johns Hopkins Univer- 
sity. National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. Pro- 
ceedings. 1916:347-61. 



174 SELECTED ARTICLES 

the number of trade unionists is less than the number of per- 
sons working under trade agreement. A striking ilkistration of 
this case is found in the anthracite coal industry. Since 1906 the 
conditions of employment in this industry have been fixed by 
agreement between the representatives of the operators and of 
the workmen who are elected by the union, but at times only a 
small proportion of the workers covered by the agreement have 
been members of the imion. 

It may, therefore, be concluded, that although some joint 
agreements cover other than trade unionists and although some 
trade unionists are not working under joint agreements, the 
overlap in neither case is great. Since also, the two tend to 
offset each other it may be further concluded that the number of 
trade unionists is an approximate measure of the number of 
persons working under trade agreements. 

According to the calculations made for the United States 
Commission on Industrial Relations by Dr. Leo Wolman there 
were in 1910, 2,116,317 trade unionists in this country. Of these 
1,900,000 are in the mining, manufacturing, building and trans- 
portation industries. If we .exclude from the number of persons 
gainfully employed in these industries, the proprietary, official 
and supervisory classes, and persons under twenty-one years of 
age, the percentage of trade unionists is between twenty and 
twenty-five per cent. At first thought, the number of trade 
unionists might appear to be so small as to make the subject of 
trade agreements in their connection with industrial education 
one of slight importance. But when the distribution of the trade 
unionists among the gainfully employed is taken into account, 
the matter appears in a different light, since the trade unionists 
are relatively more numerous in those industries and occupations 
in which the problems of industrial education are more impor- 
tant and more perplexing. For example, according to Dr. Wol- 
man's calculations, the trade unionists in the printing trades con- 
stitute 34.3 per cent of all workers 10 years of age and over — 
certainly not less than 40 per cent of those twenty-one years of 
age and over. 

Even this consideration does not fully sum up the extent of 
the possible relations between the trade agreement and industrial 
education since within the groups of trades it is almost uni- 
formly true that the more highly skilled trades are more fully 
organized. Thus although in the building trades group taken 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION i75 

as a whole only 16.2 per cent of the workers are organized, 
forty per cent of the bricklayers and stone masons are members 
of the union of their trade. Similar proportions in the extent of 
organization between the skilled and unskilled are found in prac- 
tically all of the other groups of trades. It may be regarded, 
that trade-unionism and trade agreements prevail far more 
therefore, as generally true, although with certain exceptions, 
largely in the skilled trades than in the unskilled. It is equally 
true that the problems of technical instruction are relatively 
more important in the same set of trades. 

Another consideration that still further magnifies the possible 
relations between the trade agreement and industrial education 
is the fact that trade unionists in every trade are more numer- 
ous in large than in small places. For example, in 1910, 35 per 
cent of the compositors, linotypers and type setters in the United 
States were in the union, but a very much higher percentage of 
these workmen living in cities of 10,000 population and over 
were organized. Similarly, although only forty per cent of the 
bricklayers and masons in the United States were organized in 
1910, a far larger part of the bricklayers and masons living in 
cities of 10,000 population and over were members of the union 
and were working under trade agreements. Since industrial 
education in most trades can be organized most efficiently and 
economically in the larger places, it follows that the importance 
of the trade agreement in its relation to industrial education 
is greatly enhanced by the distribution of the trade unionists as 
between small and large places. 

By no means all trade agreements, however, contain pro- 
visions concerning the training of workers. The unions may 
roughly be classified into four groups. 

(i) The unions of unskilled workers. No rules regulating 
the training of new workers are found in the trade agreements 
in these trades for the very obvious reason that the beginner 
acquires in a very short time the knowledge necessary for the 
satisfactory performance of his work. 

(2) The unions in those trades in which the "helper" sys- 
tem is recognized as the appropriate method of training new 
workers. Provision for the training of helpers has been com- 
paratively rare. In the first place, in many trades the helpers 
have been unorganized and the union of journeymen has not 
claimed any control over their training. In the second place, in 



176 SELECTED ARTICLES 

many trades, the necessary skill of the journeyman can be ac- 
quired readily by every helper. 

(3) The unions in those trades in which the skill and knowl- 
edge necessary for a journeyman is acquired by a workman per- 
forming an allied, but distinct kind of labor. In such trades, 
the two classes of workmen are frequently organized in separate 
unions, and the more highly trained class of workmen do not as 
a union concern themselves with the training of the class below 
them. 

(4) The unions in those trades in which the skill of the 
journeyman is acquired by a considerable period of training in 
the actual work of the trade. In such unions the recruiting of 
the trade has been given most attention, and the trade agree- 
ments in these trades almost uniformly contain provisions relat- 
ing to persons who are learning the trade. In these trades a 
clear distinction is drawn between those who are learning the 
trade and those who are proficient. Although the learners may 
not be admitted to the union and ordinarily are not, the union 
assumes over them a certain authority. The number of such 
learners is limited, the term they shall serve is prescribed, and, 
perhaps, the character of their work is regulated by the terms of 
the agreement made by the union and the employer. 

Obviously, a full treatment of the possibilities of trade agree- 
ments and industrial education would require discussion of at 
least three of these classes of unions. For example, where the 
learner is a helper and is organized in the same union with the 
journeymen, the union might ask and secure the insertion in its 
agreement with employers of a provision that helpers should 
attend courses in a trade school as a condition of promotion to 
the grade of journeyman. It will be admitted, however, that 
at the present juncture, these classes of trades are not the most 
important in their relation to industrial education. I shall, there- 
fore, confine myself to trade agreements in that class of trades 
in which it is admitted by both parties to the agreement that a 
lengthy course of training is necessary to acquire proficiency in 
the trade. Such a class of learners are ordinarily known as ap- 
prentices. The economic characteristics of the apprentice are, 
on the one hand, as distinguishing him from persons preparing 
to enter less skilled trades, the length of the period of training, 
and on the other hand, as distinguishing him from the helper, 
the fact that he is less proficient at the particular work on which 
he is engaged than a fully trained workman. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION I77 

Wherever, therefore, apprenticeship, using the word in its 
broadest sense, exists, the idea of learning is also dominantly 
present. The helper learns, but learning is not the essence of 
his employment. He has an independent reason for existence. 
Even if locomotive engineers were recruited entirely from shop 
men, there must be firemen. The apprentice, on the other hand, 
is doing or should be doing, for the greater part of his appren- 
ticeship, work which is identical with that done by the skilled 
workmen in the same shop. 

The greater part of the American trade unions provide in 
their trade agreements for the regulation of apprenticeship. In 
1905 Professor Motley found in his survey of "Apprenticeship 
in American Trade Unions" that seventy of the one hundred and 
twenty unions affiliated with the American Federation of Labor 
had apprenticeship rules : The membership of these unions was 
900,000 as against a membership of 750,000 in the unions which 
did not attempt to maintain apprenticeship systems. I am not 
acquainted with any more recent attempt to survey the field, but 
it is certain that the proportion is not greatly different at present. 

In the greater part, if not in all of the trades in which ap- 
prenticeship remains the recognized method of entrance to the 
trade, complaints are constantly being made that the apprentice 
does not thoroughly master the trade. In this company I need 
only briefly recall to attention the causes of this failure, since 
the matter has formed the staple of many Surveys. In the first 
place, with the increasing size of the shop, specialization has 
become the mark of a well organized plant. The apprentice is, 
therefore, most conveniently and profitably disposed of by allow- 
ing him to follow some one operation. The result is that at the 
end of his apprenticeship he is proficient in only a small part of 
the trade. Secondly, with the increasing size of the shop and the 
high specialization, the apprentice receives little instruction. 
Thirdly, in a considerable number of trades the advancing tech- 
nique requires that the apprentice shall have instruction of a 
kind which can not be furnished in the shop, since the knowledge 
required can only be gained by formal instruction. 

The trade unions and the employers' associations are well 
aware of these defects in the present system of apprenticeship. 
No subject is more ardently debated in their annual meetings; 
their committees of inquiry are constantly reporting on plans for 
improvement. Until recently the outcome of their deliberations 
in nearly all the trades concerned was monotonously the same. 



178 SELECTED ARTICLES 

On the one side, the trade union was convinced that the real 
obstacle was that the apprentice was not given an opportunity 
to learn all the dififerent parts of the trade. The result of this 
conviction was the insertion in the trade union rules and later 
in agreements with employers of a more or less detailed scheme 
of apprentice progression. On the other hand, the employers 
have been of the opinion that it was important to rouse the sense 
of responsibility of the individual employer. In more recent 
years, the unions and employers have become convinced that even 
the most elaborate schemes of progression, and the keenest in- 
terest of some individual employers will fail, in many trades, to 
secure the proper training of the apprentice. More and more 
both sides have come to ask whether it will not be necessary to 
supplement the training of the apprentice either by instruction 
concurrent with work in an employer's shop or by an initiatory 
period of full-time instruction. 

Since the questions raised are somewhat dififerent, it will be 
convenient to consider first the case of provision in the trade 
agreement for supplemental instruction concurrent with work in 
an employer's shop, e.g. attendance on evening school, part time 
instruction, and dull season classes. What are the advantages of 
the trade agreement as a method of securing the addition of 
training of this kind. There are two other conceivable methods 
of introducing such supplemental training. The matter may be 
left to the initiative of the apprentice or to the pressure of the 
individual employer. The chief advantage of provision in the 
trade agreement over either of the other methods is that only by 
trade agreement can the attendance of all apprentices in union 
shops be secured. Moreover, where the time for instruction is in 
part or wholly in working hours, it is only by trade agreements 
that there can be any certainty that all employers "covered by the 
agreement will make the necessary allowances of time. The argu- 
ment for the compulsory attendance of apprentices rests on much 
the same basis as the argument for compulsory education. Just 
as the state requires attendance upon school, so the trade through 
its organs of government requires that apprentices shall attend 
evening school or dull-season school. The only force which can 
thus render supplemental trade education compulsory is the trade 
agreement. Ordinarily the employer's association acting alone 
cannot enforce such a rule upon its members. If such education 
is not compulsory, the usual experience has been that a number 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 179 

of apprentices will neglect the opportunity and that employers in 
many cases will not require attendance. There will always be 
some who contend that the value of instruction is greater when 
it is sought. When it is remembered that apprentices are ordi- 
narily only from sixteen to twenty years of age, we shall prob- 
ably not value this argument more highly than we do the argu- 
ment of those who on similar grounds protest against compul- 
sory education laws. 

There is another important advantage in making such supple- 
mental instruction compulsory. In many cases, the emploj'ers 
must either pay part of the cost of instruction or make some 
readjustment of shop organization which involves expense. It 
is by no means certain that this expense will be recouped en- 
tirely by the improved efficiency of the apprentice during the 
apprenticeship period. He may be a more proficient journeyman, 
but the employer cannot be sure of retaining his services as a 
journeyman. If, however, the rule extends over the trade so 
that all apprentices are receiving proper supplemental instruc- 
tion, the employer has the satisfaction of knowing not simply 
that his apprentices are being taught properly but that the whole 
body of apprentices is being well taught. Even though his own 
apprentices leave him when their apprenticeship is completed, he 
can secure equally well trained men from the general supply. In 
this as in other matters relating to the instruction of the appren- 
tice, it must be borne in mind that the individual employer, 
unless working under very exceptional circumstances, cannot be 
expected to do his part unless other employers are required to do 
theirs. The instruction of apprentices is a trade matter. It 
seems useless to attempt to improve conditions merely by appeal- 
ing to the individual employer's interest in his own apprentices. 
Why should he bear a burden which should be carried equally 
by all employers? The only device by which all employers, at 
least all union employers, can be made to give the necessary 
instruction is by trade agreement. 

A further advantage of supplemental instruction of this kind 
should be a better formulation and enforcement of the rules for 
apprentice progression now found in a considerable number of 
trade agreements. In most trades, it is regarded as necessary 
that the apprentice should be moved from one position to an- 
other in the shop, if he is to develop into a proficient workman. 
In several, if not all of the trades in which schemes of progres- 



i8o SELECTED ARTICLES 

sion have been embodied in trade agreements complaint is made 
that they are not generally enforced. The reason seems to be 
that the enforcement of such schemes is and must be through 
shop committees. In some small shops, there are no committees ; 
in others, the committees are lax in insisting on the carrying out 
of the schemes. Some of this laxity is attributable to the fact 
that the schemes themselves are only loosely sketched and do not 
commend themselves to the judgment of the employers and 
workmen. Moreover, there appears frequently to be objection on 
the part of the apprentice to being transferred from a process 
with which he has become familiar to a new one. 

Supplemental instruction if made compulsory by trade agree- 
ment would necessarily be correlated to some extent with the 
work of the apprentices. It would follow that pressure of a very 
persistent and effective kind would be exerted on those em- 
ployers who failed to afford their apprentices the necessary pro- 
gression of work. The present decentralized administration of 
the rule would be supplemented by a centralized oversight 
through the officers of instruction and the joint committee of 
employers and workmen in charge of instruction. Moreover. 
the reluctance of the apprentice to take up new branches of 
work would disappear if the supplemental instruction inspired 
him with the ambition to become a proficient and well rounded 
workman. 

Finally, the incorporation of provision for supplemental in- 
struction in trade agreements should react favorably on the char- 
acter of the instruction. The danger which appears to beset in- 
dustrial education, perhaps in peculiar degree, is that it may 
become remote from the needs of the student. Where supple- 
mental instruction is required for every apprentice, the instruc- 
tion becomes a regular part of the trade equipment. Conse- 
quently, the character of the course; is constantly under the 
supervision of the parties to the trade agreement. 

There is, apparently, a widespread desire in a number of 
trades that provision should be made for supplemental, concur- 
rent instruction. It is easy to understand why the trade imions 
and employers welcome provision for such instruction. The in- 
efficient workman is a heavy charge upon the cost of production. 
The union as representing the interests of the workmen in the 
trade not merely in the present but also in the future has the 
strongest incentive to aid in making provision for increasing the 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION i8l 

personal efficiency of its members. It is unnecessary to dilate 
upon these general advantages, but there is one advantage of such 
instruction which is peculiar to organized workmen and their 
employers. Since trade agreements are made by unions and em- 
ployers of union men, this advantage is important in considering 
the possibilities of the trade agreement in its relation to industrial 
education. 

The prime purpose of every trade union is to improve the 
conditions of employment in the trade and chief among the con- 
ditions of employment is the rate of wages. The device which 
the union employs to raise wages is collective bargaining. There 
are two form of collective bargaining : the union may through its 
officers assume control of the bargain by which the labor of each 
of its members is sold r;id itself make the bargain for the mem- 
ber as an individual contract, or, secondly, the union may fix 
upon some general rate of wage applicable to all of its members 
or to a class of its members. It is only in rare cases that the 
union can apply the first method ; it cannot put one price on A 
and another on B according to some rough measurement of their 
efficiency. The unions, therefore, set some general or standard 
rate. In the piece working trades such a standard rate affords a 
practicable measure of the labor of the members. It is for this 
reason that the earliest and even yet some of the strongest 
unions are in the piece-working trades. Piece work in some 
trades has disadvantages but it has everywhere from the stand- 
point of the union this one great advantage — every member of 
the union is equally interested in the standard rate. An increase 
in the rate goes equally to every workman. 

Even among time workers many unions find little or no diffi- 
culty in establishing a satisfactory measure for labor. In many 
unskilled trades, even under individual bargaining, differences in 
efficiency are so slight that all the workmen engaged are paid at 
the same rate per day. But this will ordinarily occur only in 
relatively unskilled employment. In the skilled trades, and it is 
to be borne in mind that the problem of technical instruction 
occurs primarily in the skilled trades, the distribution of effi- 
ciency is frequently very wide. In such trades, the only stand- 
ard rate which it is practicable to establish is a minimum. But 
here a difficulty presents itself. If the minimum is put high a 
certain part of the workers will be unable to secure the mini- 
mum. On the other hand, if the minimum is placed low, it loses 



i82 SELECTED ARTICLES 

its efficacy as a bargaining device for the labor of a considerable 
part of the members. What the union actually does in nearly 
all cases is to put the minimum wage high enough to lend sup- 
port to the wages of the great mass of its members. What be- 
comes of the inferior workmen when the minimum is placed 
high? In a few unions where the control of the trade is strong 
the employer who wishes a man is required to take him from a 
list on which the men are registered in the order of their falling 
out of employment. This device keeps in employment the infe- 
rior man at a wage much higher than he is relatively entitled to. 
Failing the adoption of such a "waiting list," the inefficient man 
either seeks work in a non-union shop or becomes a casual 
worker in the union shops. Taken on in busy seasons, he is dis- 
charged as soon as a more efficient man can be found. In either 
case, he becomes a serious problem for the union. 

Inefficiency is chargeable to a variety of causes, but two stand 
out prominently — natural incapacity for the trade and lack of 
proper training. The establishment by joint trade agreement of 
a system of compulsory supplemental training would greatly re- 
duce in every skilled trade the number of inefficients. In the 
first place, those who were by natural incapacity unfit for the 
trade would be excluded to an extent which is now impracticable. 
In many trades, the agreements now provide for a probationary 
period. If after three or six months the apprentice is found to 
be unsuited to the trade, he is to be excluded. These rules have 
not been found to work well. The administration is in the hands 
of the shop committee and as has been noted above this form of 
administration is ineffective. Moreover, the work of the appren- 
tice in his first few months of shop work is not ordinarily of 
such a kind as to afford an adequate test of his capacity. It may 
be expected that where compulsory supplemental training is 
instituted a conference will be held by the employer, the shop 
committee and the instructors as to the capacity of the apprentice 
at the end of the probationary period. The supplemental Vi'ork 
may during the probationary period be directed especially to 
testing the capacity of the youth. In the second place, the im- 
proved training would reduce the number of those who are ineffi- 
cient because they lack proper grounding in the elements of the 
trade. There would still be differences in efficiency due to differ- 
ences in capacity, but the spread of the efficiency distribution 
would be greatly narrowed and the problem of organizing the 
trade would be enormously lessened. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 183 

If we turn now from supplemental, concurrent instruction to 
initiatory and preparatory instruction, the use of the trade agree- 
ment up to the present has been less frequent. There are four 
reasons advanced for making such instruction a part of the train- 
ing of the apprentice : 

(i) The trade as practised in all except the smallest shops 
is split up into a number of specialties. If the apprentice is to 
receive a grounding in the trade as a whole, this must be given 
him apart from the actual work of industry. 

(2) In a number of trades, the age at which the apprentice 
can begin work is higher than the age at which many pupils leave 
school. As a result, apprenticeship does not follow immediately 
upon schooling. The two or three years spent in juvenile employ- 
ment leaves the youth on entering the trade less receptive to 
formal instruction than he would have been at the time he left 
school. 

(3) Even if the apprentice remains in school until the time 
of actually beginning his apprenticeship, it is felt that the last 
year or two of his school life can most profitably be spent in 
preparing for his trade career. 

(4) The reluctance of many employers to take apprentices 
is due to the fact that their work in the earlier part of their 
apprenticeship is unprofitable. If the apprentice had the training 
of an initiatory year or two years he would be capable of earn- 
ing his wage, and employers would be willing to have apprentices. 

Naturally these factors vary in importance in different trades, 
but it appears to be generally admitted that in certain trades an 
initiatory period of instruction is desirable. The question then 
emerges how far the trade acting through a trade agreement will 
be willing to offer Inducements to the apprentice to pass through 
this initiatory period. Three forms of encouragement are sug- 
gested : ( I ) It may be provided that youths who have passed 
through the initiatory period shall receive a wage equal to or 
higher than that they would have received if they had come up 
through the shop. (2) It may be provided that the employers 
shall give the preference to such youths when taking on appren- 
tices. (3) It may be provided that the time of apprenticeship 
shall be shortened by an allowance for the time spent in the pre- 
paratory trade school. 

The advantages of the initiatory period of instruction are 
of much the same kind as those enumerated above as attaching 
to supplemental concurrent instruction. The standardization of 



i84 SELECTED ARTICLES 

the workman through better training and the eUmination of those 
unsuited to the trade would be attained in even higher degree. 
Moreover, the inducements which it is proposed to hold out to 
youths in order to induce them to follow the initiatory course 
of instruction appear unobjectionable. In a small but dwindling 
number of trades the ancient right of a father to apprentice a 
son to his own trade still persists. The provision that youths who 
have taken the initiatory course should have preference for ap- 
prenticeship conflicts with that right, but patrimonial apprentice- 
ship has fallen so much into disuse that no great objection is 
likely to be made on that score. 

The difficulty lies not in the character of the concessions 
necessary to secure the attendance of youths in the initiatory 
school, but in the fear that an attempt is being made to replace 
apprenticeship as the method of entrance to the trade. The union 
and to some extent the employers may ask whether the training 
afforded by the period of initiatory instruction will serve not 
simply as supplementary to apprenticeship, but also as an entirely 
new means of entrance to the trade. The reluctance to relinquish 
apprenticeship is not confined to the unions. In a recent report 
of the Commission on Vocational Training of the International 
Typographical Union, Dr. F. W. Hamilton, national apprentice 
director of the United Typothetae of America, is quoted as 
writing : 

We have endeavored wherever possible to spread sound ideas as to the 
principles and methods of industrial education, urging everywhere the es- 
tablishment of continuation work for printers' apprentices in the public 
schools and discouraging in so far as we were able to do so the establish- 
ment of vocational schools of printing in the public schools. In cases where 
such work was well established in the public schools and changes did not 
seem practicable, we have endeavored to put the schools in such relations to 
the industry that the work should be done in the most workmanlike manner 
possible and that an easy way should be provided for the boys who have 
done well in the schools to find proper places in the shops. ... It [The 
Typothetae Committee] holds that it is the business of the industry (i) to 
select the boy, (2) to see about his training. It sees no other way in which 
a proper adjustment may be made between the boys who are being trained 
and the industry itself so that the number of boys who are being trained 
shall not exceed the number who can find employment in the industry. . . . 
A method which begins with the boy irrespective of the industry, attempts 
to teach him printing and then leaves him to find a place if he can is fair 
neither to the boy, to the public, nor to the industry itself. 

In the same letter, Dr. Hamilton mentions as one of the plans 
for apprentice training encouraged by his committee : 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 185 

Schools supported by a group of printers in which the boy puts in the 
first year in intensive practical work under the direction of a competent 
teacher and then goes out into the shop to finish his apprenticeship under 
the teacher's observation. 

In brief, then, the unions and to some extent employers ap- 
prove of initiatory instruction only on condition that it is tied 
firmly to the apprenticeship system. For example, it is hardly 
conceivable that a union v^^ould object to a school maintained 
jointly by the union and the employers in which training was 
given to apprentices already allotted to particular shops, although 
as yet not at work in the shops. 

But let us assume that initiatory training for the trade is 
offered by a public school to any one who chooses to take up the 
particular line irrespective of the opportunities for apprentice- 
ship. A union which completely controls the trade will face this 
problem without much misgiving since it can exclude such per- 
sons from the trade or from opportunity to complete their train- 
ing; it will not concern itself with opposing such forms of voca- 
tional training. It may even agree to allow such persons as are 
taken on as apprentices a certain amount of credit for the voca- 
tional training. A weaker union might hesitate through fear that 
the entire system of entrance of apprenticeship may break down. 
It is undoubtedly true that there are important advantages in en- 
trance by apprenticeship. In the first place, if there are no re- 
strictions on the number of apprentices the supply of new 
workers entering the trade is proportioned to the needs of the 
trade far more exactly than can be accomplished where training 
for the trade is divorced from industry. Except in those indus- 
tries where boy labor is profitable an employer takes on a new 
apprentice only because he needs additional skilled labor. When 
the industry is expanding, the apprentices increase; when it is 
stationary, the number of apprentices falls off. Through appren- 
ticeship the trade draws to itself the necessary supply. There 
are other advantages : The cost of training is less. The poorer 
boy who cannot afford the time to learn a trade by school in- 
struction, can earn something while learning. 

It is conceivable that a union might reject proposals to aid 
a system of initiatory training because it desired to maintain 
apprenticeship. But it is probably not the fear that such a system 
would destroy the apprenticeship system root and branch that 
bulks largest in the opposition. Connected with the system of 



i86 SELECTED ARTICLES 

apprenticeship in practically all unions which recognize appren- 
ticeship as the normal method of entrance to the trade is some 
limitation on the number of apprentices. It is feared by some 
trade unionists that by the inauguration of a system of initiatory 
training, the number of apprentices will be increased and the 
trade will be overcrowded. The limitations on the number of 
apprentices have other purposes than restriction of the number 
of journeymen. In some trades, for example, the relative num- 
bers of apprentices allotted respectively to large and small shops 
are assumed to bear a relation to the facilities for training ap- 
prentices. But it is undoubtedly true that the limitations are 
regarded chiefly as a protection against overcrowding the trade. 

Obviously the validity of this objection rests on the assump- 
tion that the present rules do restrict the number entering the 
trade. There are certain trades in which the number of persons 
entering is limited by apprenticeship regulation, but, the effect of 
apprenticeship rules on the number entering any one of the im- 
portant trades must be very small. When one considers, for 
example, that the carpenters or printers admit constantly any 
workman who can get the minimum rate and that at least one- 
half the shops in the country are non-union, it can hardly be 
contended that the enforcement of the apprenticeship ratio affects 
materially the total number entering the trade. As a matter of 
fact, in the greater part of the trades maintaining entrance by 
apprenticeship, the union shops have less apprentices than the 
rules allow them, and the number of apprentices is less than suffi- 
cient to recruit the workmen needed for the union offices. The 
reason for this is that the union is especially strong in the larger 
shops and in the larger cities. Here the trade is more specialized 
and the advantages at present to the apprentice and to the em- 
ployer are both less than in the smaller shop. The constant 
recruiting of the union from the non-union shop means, of 
course, a constant effort on the part of the union to absorb new 
material. 

It is assumed by those who oppose initiatory training that by 
its introduction the employer would be more willing to take on 
apprentices and more boys would be willing to learn the trade. 
What result might reasonably be expected? Would it not simply 
be that the men needed for the union offices would be trained 
there and the men trained in non-union offices would be left there 
instead of being steadily drawn away, thus making it necessary 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 187 

for the non-union offices to train up new workmen? The chief 
change would not be in the total number of apprentices but in 
the place of their training. In such trades as these a careful can- 
vass of the situation would probably convince the union that it 
would be advantageous to favor as far as possible any plan which 
would stimulate apprenticeship in union shops even if the limita- 
tions on the number of apprentices were relaxed or abandoned. 



THE CO-OPERATIVE SYSTEM OE 
INDUSTRIAL TRAINING' 

If industrial education means a re-directing and adapting of 
our education to fit the economic and social needs of our people, 
then it is a problem which has no single solution. There will be 
as many school classifications as there are groups of industries, 
nearly as many solutions as there are types of communities, and 
there is no single inflexible course of study nor a single line of 
procedure. 

The rapid development of the manufacturing interests of our 
country during the past decade, particularly in the metal-working 
lines, has increased the problem of finding an adequate supply 
of labor and of a proper degre of efficiency. The modern sys- 
tem of production has had much to do with such conditions. The 
absence of a definite system of factory training has its share of 
the responsibility. 

Meanwhile, the public school desires to hold its pupils, but 
youth wants to earn money, and parents ask the eternal question, 
"What shall we do for our boy?" The mother sees that if her 
boy goes to work in the average factory he is likely to fail in 
learning a trade, while it is almost positive that he will shut the 
door against that further liberal education which he might get 
in the high school. 

Now, let us imagine that the boy is able to say, "Father, the 
problem is solved. The co-operative school is about to be opened. 
In it I will become a skillful machinist, able to earn more than a 
living immediately upon graduation, and I will also have all the 
benefits of a high school education at the same time." 

^ From article by A. D. Dean. National Education Association. Pro- 
ceedings 1910:612-16. 



i88 SELECTED ARTICLES 

The fundamental principle of the co-operative system is very 
simple. In brief, it is this : The technique or the practical side 
of the work is taught only in a shop or store which is working 
under actual commercial conditions ; the Science underlining the 
technique is taught by skilled teachers in a public school. 

To many it seems feasible so to organize the public school 
system that it will be capable of dealing with all these children — 
those in school and those out of school. It would seem that a 
solution of the problem would be some system of co-operation 
between the schools and the factories for training those young 
.people in industrial and civic efficiency after they have found 
their work. 

There are well-defined and distinct advantages in both sys- 
tems of industrial training — co-operative and public trade school. 
It is hardly necessary for partisans on either side to overreach 
in their arguments. The real issue at stake is not whether the 
co-operative system is the only proper system of training, but, 
rather, to what extent each system can find its proper place in 
American education. There is room for both, and an analysis of 
the principles involved is well worth while at this point. 

Undoubtedly the co-operative system is economical from the 
standpoint of school equipment. It places upon the taxpayer 
almost no burden of taxation, as the existing equipment of com- 
mercial shops is used. It is obvious, of course, that trade schools 
are necessarily somewhat expensive. The same may be said of 
dental, medical, agricultural, and mechanic-arts colleges. But 
it is doubtful if the public will be willing to make any unjust 
discriminations based upon financial considerations against a 
necessary and proper industrial training of the mass of our 
people who work in the great constructive industries, in favor of 
those who are engaged in professional work. We must look be- 
yond such a material argument. 

It is claimed that educational waste will be avoided in the 
co-operative system by using foremen in the shops as teachers of 
shop-work rather than teachers specially trained. Who can 
guarantee that they will make good teachers? The practical 
mechanic without pedagogical training may be able to impart to 
the student the mechanical manipulations of his trade, but if he 
cannot make the proper connections with the pedagogic end of 
his work he will be deficient to that extent. 

Another point in favor of the co-operative system — one which 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 189 

comes under the head of educational waste — refers to the fallacy 
of attempting to give specific trade education in a public trade 
school to a boy of sixteen years of age when he does not know 
what trade he wants to learn, or when he can hardly afford to 
spend three or four years in a trade school without compensa- 
tion. 

Another weakness of the public trade school is said to be the 
break in the continuity of systematic mental effort which will 
exist between the period at which the boy dropped out of school 
at fourteen and the trade school period when the boy enters it 
at sixteen ; this lack of continuity forcing the trade school to 
gather up the interrupted, loose, and disorganized threads of 
mental activity. 

If the advocates of the co-operative system feel that they 
must oppose the public-trade school movement by such argu- 
ments, they have at least furnished a valuable contribution to- 
ward an argument for vocational training between fourteen and 
sixteen. Such training is intended to arouse a set of industrial 
interests which will require specific training for their satisfac- 
tion; the latter training to be given in the trade school, open to 
ipupils who are sixteen years of age, or in the shops themselves. 

Open to boys who are sixteen years of age, the co-operative 
system makes one strong appeal. It gives them an opportunity 
of earning something. They are earning while learning, whereas 
under the trade school system they do not earn until they have 
completed their trade education. The co-operative system makes 
it possible for a child to continue in school, whereas now he is 
compelled to take a low-grade, poorly paid, unskilled position 
perhaps without any future prospects either in money or the ac- 
quirement of skill. 

The co-operative system will naturally serve to keep the busi- 
ness men and employers in constant touch with the public school 
system if for no other reason than the selfish incentive to get the 
most out of it for themselves. Given an opportunity to co-ope- 
rate, it is expected that they will study the schools with their 
own needs in mind, and as one result they may possibly become 
interested and aroused enough to better the schools. At least 
there can be co-ordination between the school instructor and the 
shop force. So far, in carrying out the co-operative plan in the 
cities that have tried it, the instructors have been acquainted with 
the local shop practice. They spend part of the time in the shop 



igo SELECTED ARTICLES 

and part of the time in the school. It is their business to observe 
the students at their work, to study the shop system and any 
other matter of interest, noticing particularly the everjday shop 
applications of the various sciences, as mathematics, physics, 
chemistry and dravv^ing. 

It is expected that the co-operative system can be applied not 
only to the machine trades but also to the tailoring, baking, 
butchering, building or any other trade where the mechanical 
equipment or natural conditions are somewhat different from the 
trades which have already adopted it. Already a department 
store in New York City has introduced the system. Among 
other things the salespeople are taught psychology and salesman- 
ship, and are given as much technical knowledge as possible of 
the things they are selling. In addition they receive a certain 
amount of general education. 

In many instances where the co-operative system is employed 
there is an apparent one-sidedness in the agreement between the 
apprentice and the employer which it appears might be avoided. 
While it may be said that all these employers are men of known 
integrity, on the other hand the success of the whole scheme de- 
pends entirely on their doing what they ought to do. If an 
agreement is necessary, it seems as if the employer would be likely 
to stand in much better light with the public if he also was under 
an equal bond to fulfill some definite agreement. Undoubtedly 
there is much of value in the co-operative scheme, but before it 
can have general indorsement, the public must be assured that 
the plan is so worked out that it results in all-round training 
and that the half-time idea does not become a half-waj^ scheme. 

The pupils that are merely taken into the shops on the half- 
time or the co-operative plan, may not receive the systematic and 
progressive advancement in learning the different parts of the 
industry that is desirable. To a certain extent, the pupils may 
be exploited for the benefit of the manufacturer, for the money 
value of the product of the boy's labor often seems to be more 
determinative to the manufacturer than the pupil's progress in 
learning the trade. On the other hand, in a public trade school 
where the work is not carried on under the conditions of a real 
factory it may be impossible for the pupil to attain a practical 
skill and efificiency equal to that of a good workman in a factory. 
Of course much depends on the way the school is conducted. 
Unless the method of instruction in the school is different from 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 191 

that at present in vogue in our manual-training schools, the 
workman's time as a factor in the cost of production never can 
be sufficiently demonstrated to a pupil where his presence and 
wages do not depend upon his active productive ability. Neither 
can the time that may properly be used and the skill required 
for the different operations be sufficiently understood by the 
pupil until the product is put to actual commercial use and the 
pupil rewarded for his work in proportion to his perception and 
adjustment of these factors of production. Perhaps this is the 
strongest argument for the co-operative plan. 

The co-operative plan has tremendous advantages. In pre- 
senting it I have endeavored to be fair to both the public, to the 
school and the so-called "Cincinnati scheme." Certainly the plan 
is worth trying. It is very largely based upon a German method. 
The success of the German system is due not only to the 
fostering care of a central government but in a large measure 
to social and economic conditions inherent in the situation. In 
that country it is taken as a matter of course that employers and 
schools will work together to promote thoro industrial training. 
In such an atmosphere the co-operative scheme can achieve its 
highest development. In America conditions are different. Em- 
ployers have not taken up to the present time, any great interest 
in the work of the public schools except to criticise them. 
Neither have schoolmen taken any interest in the labor conditions 
in our industries. Evidently the co-operative system offers a 
means of getting together. But if the school authorities adopt 
this plan simply to avoid spending public money, and emploj^ers 
take up the scheme simply to throw off the burden of responsi- 
bility of obtaining skilled labor upon the public schools, simply 
because they have been negligent in the past in doing what may 
have been their duty, then the scheme is doomed to failure. The 
co-operative plan must get beyond selfish, personal motives if it 
is to be a part of an American system of education. Primarily 
the schools are managed in the interests of their boys and girls. 
I would not dampen the ardor of those that favor the co-opera- 
tive system, but no association of employers can be allowed to 
dictate a system of public education unless it be along lines which 
are of direct personal advantage to the boys and girls. Then it 
will not be dictation, but co-operation, and that we all welcome. 



192 SELECTED ARTICLES 



CONTINUATION SCHOOLS' 

There are two propositions upon which my whole argument 
depends. These are as follows : 

1. The state possesses no higher treasures than the moral and intellec- 
tual powers of its youth. This applies to all classes of youth whether des- 
tined for the trades or the professions. As the Germans say: "No nation 
can take and sustain a prominent place in the modern world that fails to 
develop and utilize the powers and ability latent in all classes of its people." 

2. "No boy or girl ought to be treated," as Winston Churchill says, 
"merely as cheap labor. Up to eighteen years of age every boy and girl in 
the country school, as in the old days of apprenticeship, should be learning 
a trade (or vocation), as well as earning a living." No person should be 
permitted to employ the boys or girls during these formative years without 
assuming some responsibility for their learning a vocation. 

I expect to show that these propositions require the addition 
of a new type of school to our system. 

A fundamental defect in our present school system results 
from our custom of terminating compulsory school education at 
fourteen years of age. Everyone will admit that this is too early. 
We contribute to the support of the public schools on the ground 
that they are necessary to the perpetuation of our free institu- 
tions. We urge that a certain minimum of instruction and train- 
ing is indispensable as a preparation for citizenship, and that the 
training of character connected with the minimum is of great 
importance for this preparation. We are permitting our boys 
and girls to leave our public schools at fourteen, just at the time 
when they most need guidance and instruction, just at the time 
when character-building really begins, and just when they should 
be objects of special attention in our educational plans. Before 
the age of fourteen the youth is too immature to comprehend 
the training required by a citizen in a modern state. He has 
not the judgment and power of resistance to temptations neces- 
sary for an independent life in modern society. Our school train- 
ing, therefore, is not carried far enough at the present time to 
reach its real aim, to provide instruction and training necessary 
for the solution of the problems of everyday life. Further, the 
youth who leaves school at fourteen loses and wastes almost the 

1 From article by Edwin G. Cooley. National Education Association. Pro- 
ceedings. 1912:1203-7. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 193 

entire results of his eight years in the elementary school before 
he is of age. 

The necessity for carrying forward the school instruction be- 
yond the years of compulsory attendance is becoming more and 
more urgent. The transformation of the social body, the rapid 
transition of our people from country life to city life, the de- 
velopment of the industries and commercial activities demand 
more from the school than they did in the past. 

The nineteenth century has made the elementary school, which 
was often nothing but a reading-school or a school for three R's, 
a real educational institution for the people. As Friedrich Paul- 
sen says : 

It will be the mightiest problem of the twentieth century to build the 
elementary school as a general and fundamental form of school a new fin- 
ishing educational institution, or to give to the elementary-school instruc- 
tion its necessary conclusion in a kind of vocational high school, a school 
whose problem will be the carrying forward and making fruitful of the 
general education for vocational activity. 

The course of education for every position in life should 
include two grades. The first is the elementary school, whose 
problem is — apart from the development of the intellectual 
powers — to provide exercises in the school arts which every suc- 
cessive instruction presupposes and makes use of. In a democracy 
this elementary course should be the same for all, and can be 
communicated to all divisions of the people in one common insti- 
tution — the elementary school. The second grade has as its prob- 
lem to advance financial means of the pupils in accordance with 
the degree of existing financial means and mental powers, and 
to give real vocational education. This is true of the so-called 
learned occupations which demand a real scientific training as a 
preparation for a profession. This is provided by the universi- 
ties, and the various sorts of technical and commercial colleges, 
and by our secondary schools. To be fair to all, modern condi- 
tions require another type of school which, like other schools, 
presupposes the general training given in the elementary school, 
but which has as its problem the training for the vocational 
life of the youth who must leave the ordinary school at four- 
teen years. This training on the immediately practical, technical 
side may fall to the vocations themselves, but a school must be 
provided to supplement this shop training by supplying the 
knowledge and skill demanded by modem business or industrial 



194 SELECTED ARTICLES 

the school now known as the continuation or part-time school. 

Care must be taken, however, that this new independent type 
of vocational school which takes the youth on leaving the ele- 
mentary school not only provides a practical vocational educa- 
tion, but also considers the needs of the man and the citizen. The 
vocations, however, will stand as the central point of every well- 
regulated life and exercise a reaction upon all the remaining 
human activities. 

Nevertheless it should be emphasized that the problem of this 
new school is providing an education for citizenship, remember- 
ing that a good citizen must necessarily be able and willing to 
earn a decent living. We cannot leave the instruction concerning 
the public duties of man exclusively to party eloquence or to the 
daily press. This work cannot be done in the elementary school 
on account of the lack of maturity, experience, and power of 
comprehension of young children before the age of adolescence. 
The boy, however, who enters into practical life is immediately 
attracted by questions of citizenship, and comes to such instruc- 
tion with all sorts of practical questions. He now has an interest 
in these questions, and an understanding of their significance 
which was impossible during the elementary-school period. If 
this instruction can grow out of concrete facts, and experience 
can be related to the rights and duties of the pupil himself, we 
shall succeed in utilizing this interest. In this course we should 
include some study of politics, of the position of our country 
among the nations of the earth, of our possessions, our power, 
our productions, and our commerce. 

We must not forget that such youth are still boys and girls 
with an interest in amusements and activity of various kinds. 
Play and excursions, evening entertainments, and festivals should 
be carried on in connection with their school work, as they are 
now carried on in connection with our secondary and elementary 
schools. Libraries and reading-halls should be provided for such 
continuation schools, and the wise use of books will be a most 
important function of the teacher in such institutions. Such 
schools should be supplied with playgrounds, library halls, col- 
lections of tools, books, and apparatus, and we should encourage 
the union of former pupils with the students in the continuation 
schools. Our problem is with the whole boy, and we must not 
neglect his recreation. These continuation schools must be com- 
plete schools undertaking so far as possible the training of the 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 195 

whole boy, and not the producing of cheap skilled labor for the 
employer. 

These schools are not continuation schools in the sense of 
being places where the instruction of the elementary school is 
continued and reviewed, but a continuance of the boy's education 
under new conditions and with a new point of view. We have 
up to the time of entering these schools taught subjects, have pro- 
vided general training, which it was hoped would be later applied 
to special cases. The continuation school reverses the process 
and follows the maxims, "Try to expand from your own center," 
"Proceed slowly step by step in your own way, from the individ- 
ual to the universal." This means a change of attitude that will 
profoundly modify instruction in other schools. 

These schools must not be confused with evening schools 
which have continued and supplemented our former education. 
These new schools must have their own organization, their own 
corps of teachers, and day instruction in suitably equipped school 
buildings. In the most progressive German cities they have their 
own buildings, corps of teachers, branches of education, and all 
that goes with an independent school. 

There is no lack of interest and power for the carry-out of 
this ideal among our people. There never was a time when the 
interest in education agitated the people more powerfully than 
today. There never was a time when the so-called upper classes 
felt more fully their obligation to extend the hand to their 
brothers below to bring them up to a higher and richer life. 

The supplement to our educational system is necessary. As 
Friedrich Paulsen says : 

The education provided for our youth may be compared to an aban- 
doned ruin: the foundation is laid, a few walls are constructed, then the 
work is left to the destruction of wind and water^ 

Our school system can be regarded as finished only when we 
provide an instruction for all that will fit them for the activities 
of real vocational life. 



196 SELECTED ARTICLES 

CONTINUATION SCHOOLS FOR CHIL- 
DREN OF SCHOOL AGE' 

When we speak of continuation schooling we mean any kind 
of training adapted to people who are already at work. People 
with the right outlook on life feel that when they stop growing 
mentally they decay. When they cease to look forward it is a 
sign of aging. With this in mind those who have a foundation 
never stop reading and studying, but how is the great mass of 
our population to enjoy such happy old age when they have 
never obtained the fundamentals necessary for self development 
- — this is a problem worthy of most serious study. 

The mortality in school attendance, as shown here for the 
different grades, calls our attention to the need of supplementary 
work adapted to the needs of those who have quit. According 
to the 1912 report of the U. S. Commissioner of Education, 
pages xiv-xv, in 191 1 of children 10 to 14 years old, 8,940,000 or 
96.15 per cent, were in school; 15 to 17, 3,060,000, or 55.81 per 
cent, a drop of 4 per cent, were in school ; 18 to 20, 940,000, or 
16.59 per cent ; 21 to 24, 4.75 per cent. There were only 20 per 
cent as many in the eighth grades as in the first, and only 3.4 per 
cent as many in the last year of high school. 

There are two million children between the ages of fourteen 
and sixteen out of school in this country. Not more than half 
of these are at work at any one time, or were forced to leave 
school through economic pressure. The school did not hold their 
interest and parents tired of insisting on their attendance. Most 
of these left before the seventh grade, had no knowledge of real 
value to themselves, never attended school thereafter, and -vvere 
thrown upon the world at the critical period of adolescence. 
Citizenship has not been taught before the seventh grade and 
these young children need instruction in it as well as in trades. 

"If we need proof that our headless and aimless administra- 
tion of over $500,000,000 (five hundred million) annual investment 
in public education is a failure consider the fact that half of all 
who enter it leave as failures or disinterested by the end of the 
sixth grade," said H. E. Allies, of Wisconsin. Fifty per cent 
efficiency is too low for any machine ; why is it accepted for 

1 By Frank Harrison. School and Society. 4:617-24. October 21, 1916. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 197 

schools? We have provided long enough for the abstract-minded 
child who has been surrounded by books from infancy, to the 
exclusion of the "hand-minded" child. 

In 1910, twenty thousand pupils were in continuation schools 
at Munich. Ninety-three per cent of the boys and girls under 
eighteen were at some kind of public school. How much differ- 
ent such a condition is from that in the United States. Certainly 
our need of such a system is imperative and immediate. 

As long as our regular high schools are organized to get ten 
boys out of five hundred to college we must have continuation 
opportunities. It seems a sad commentary on the citizens of a 
country where majority is supposed to rule, that an injustice is 
done four hundred and ninety boys to help only ten. 

What more startling statement do we need to show the fail- 
ure of our elementary school and the importance of further edu- 
cation for those who leave early, than that "handsome, intel- 
ligent, supposedly well-educated mechanics of nineteen to twenty- 
five, had to begin reading in the Wisconsin continuation schools 
with the primer," a true statement according to the president of 
the Board of Industrial Education of Wisconsin. 

Continuation courses should be arranged at public expense to 
fill the need of short courses without substantial requirements. 
This is a field in which the Y. M. C. A., Y. W. C. A., business 
schools and correspondence schools are attempting to operate 
now. 

The United States Bureau of Education Bulletin Twenty, 
page 29, for 1913, shows that 

Of thirteen million young men in the United Statese between 21 and 35, 
only 5 per cent have received in the schools direct preparation for their 
vocations; of every one hundred graduates of our elementary schools only 
eight obtain their livelihood by means of professional and commercial 
pursuits, vk'hile ninety-two support themselves by manual labor. 

And yet we hesitate to help such a majority which must be as 
far below what is possible as the illiterate is below them now. 

To-day instead of providing the guidance of continuation 
schools we use up our youth in parasitic industry, requiring for 
cheapness' sake unskilled juvenile labor that leaves the child 
when he has gone through adolescence, without a trade, without 
ambition, without, in fact, a social life at all. 

The private trade school, even if well organized, does not fill 
the purpose of continuation schools. They train men for bosses, 



198 SELECTED ARTICLES 

not workmen. In practically every instance employers have found 
they are unable to cope successfully with providing education for 
young employees single-handed. Factory schools are unsatisfac- 
tory in that it can not be to the interest of the manufacturer to 
give every apprentice an equally good special and general train- 
ing. He only concerns himself with the best among them, and 
not with those of the best character, but with those of the best 
intelligence and manual skill. 

Since the state is not willing to pay the living expense of chil- 
dren, it seems inconsistent to insist upon compulsory full-time 
attendance at school. The practical way of meeting the situa- 
tion is to establish continuation schools or part-time classes and 
make then compulsory. 

The bringing of children to a public officer, the teacher, gives 
an opportunity for study as to health conditions that the selfish 
employer never takes time to consider. It lessens the necessity 
of entering "blind alley" occupations. About 85 per cent of chil- 
dren, if unguided, go into jobs that lead nowhere. 

One object of the continuation school is to give information 
on each of the processes related to the individual's occupation so 
that the apprentice does not succumb to continuous work at a 
minute operation. Principles are taught, and the use of material, 
tools and machines, in general. 

Among the many recommendations of a Dominion of Canada 
Royal Commission in Industrial Training and Technical Educa- 
tion we find in the 1913 report, (i) Subject-matter should be 
with real problems of daily life of the students; (2) that 
teachers shall have had practical experience in the occupations 
dealt with and be skilful in teaching, enthusiastic and sympa- 
thetic; (3) that attractive, comfortable and convenient rooms 
be provided and plenty of equipment; (4) social intercourse is 
to be stimulated. 

The continuation school is necessary for those entering in- 
dustry early to supplement poor home training in morals, civic 
duty and political rights. With husband and wife both in indus- 
try, little encouragement is given at home. Especially in over- 
populated states and cities public help is even more important for 
girls than boys. Girls must be trained to be mothers and house- 
hold managers, on the side, while they work for part of the 
family living. 

So much has been said about the need of lengthening the age 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 199 

of compulsory school attendance that I must defend further my 
statement that provision should be made for allowing the child 
to enter industry early. The teacher and educational theorist 
have become too conceited. They seem to think the only way to 
become educated is to attend school. The best plan is between 
the extremes of the school teacher's ideas and of the ideas of 
R. T. Crane. There is value in general education, but it is a 
stimulus to laziness. The boy really feels better if he is working, 
he feels more independent and ambitious, providing he is working 
under good conditions. He is strengthened physically and learns 
a trade from a practical standpoint which the school can not pre- 
sent alone. Thus the combination of the advantages of this with 
a continuation education would seem a step in advance. 

Boys who are not inclined to study books find school a drudge 
and certainly they are not a pleasure and joy forever to the 
teacher. Let me give one instance which is typical of many I 
have observed. A lad had been truant and delinquent until the 
court decided something final should be done as a last attempt 
at reform. Work was found for him with a reclamation sur- 
veying crew. He was to obey orders of the chief of the crew as 
though they came from the court. To-day, less than five years 
since, he is foreman of the crew and drawing a salary of $3,000 
a year. He is happy and the state should be. Why do we wait 
until boys are steeped in truancy and possibly crime before we 
respond to their nature and let them work? 

Dr. J. P. Monroe shows the psychology of this and the loss 
by not responding to it with part-time schools. He says : 

The boy wants to make something, to see some tangible result from all 
these weary hours in school; but the teacher has no idea how to make things, 
the text-books say nothing about it, and young people who make things are 
apt to be exuberant, eager, full of questioning. The child's desire to invent 
is stifled, but he is told he will see the use of the things he is asked to 
learn by and by. We destroy his individuality with predigested — though 
nevertheless still indigestible — facts, yet we censure him for exploding, out 
of school, into mischief, petty crime and worse. 

The average pupil does not want to go to college, and in nine 
cases out of ten he ought not to go. From the moment he enters 
the primary school the boy should be studied to find out if he 
is really fitted to go to college. He should have the freedom that 
(WOuld enable him to demonstrate what he is fitted for. Then if 
he is not adapted to college he should be directed into some trade 
and into part-time schools. 



200 SELECTED ARTICLES 

The National Association of Manufacturers reported in 1910 
on ten points of industrial training, among which are these : 

Industrial education must consist of skill and schooling and these two 
parts are of equal importance. They must be organically combined and 
each will coordinate and supplement the other. The average schoolmaster is 
incapable of the task, so that half-time schools are feasible and practical. 

Professor John Dewey, in his "Moral Principles of Educa- 
tion," relates a true story illustrating what employers think is 
the matter with school technical training, and which continua- 
tion school would remedy. 

There is a swimming school in a certain city where youth are taught to 
swim without going into the water, being repeatedly drilled in the various 
movements which are necessary for swimming. When one of the young 
men so trained was asked what he did when he got into water, he laconically 
replied: "Sunk." 

So many of the boys trained in schools to be bookkeepers, 
merchants, engineers, etc., sink when they get in the water of 
real business and industry. 

Frank M. Leavitt, of the University of Chicago, uses the fol- 
lowing statement, which summarizes what I have to say on this 
point. 

The continuation course takes a boy at this critical period and shows him 
how work and education are correlated rather than things apart. 

Since there are so many advantages in part-time work, and 
such a need of school opportunities for children in industry, why 
is it that we do not provide for it in the United States? Is it 
because it is new and untried? No. They are of wide use, espe- 
cially in Germany and England. 

In England they are mainly evening schols, assisted by na- 
tional grants, but nowhere compulsory. They are unsatisfactory 
because (i) youths are tired, (2) teachers are untrained for 
this kind of work, (3) supervision is difficult. 

In America, also, they are mainly evening schools. Not all 
regular high school courses are covered, but some general and 
much technical work is taught. Large numbers of foreigners go 
to learn English. The present trend is toward part-time day 
schools. Lecturing, music and drama are better fitted for eve- 
ning. Day work makes it possible to develop a special teaching 
force for it, inasmuch as it would be arranged that the pupils 
would appear in relays, the same teacher dealing with successive 
groups, so it would be financially practical to employ specialist 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 201 

teachers. But since this takes time away from the employer it 
will probably require compulsory legislation here as it has else- 
where. 

At Fitchburg, Mass., the boy agrees to stay by the employer 
three years, and the employer agrees to teach him the various 
branches of the trade. Cleveland provides twelve schools which 
those going to work before completing the elementary schools 
must attend six hours a week in the daytime unless over sixteen 
years of age. 

Many Swiss cantons, especially Zurich, Lower Austria, and 
Scotland, have day continuation schools. In Bavaria there were, 
in 1913, sixteen day continuation schools with five hundred en- 
rolled. Daytime attendance is compulsory for six to twelve 
hours a week for all under eighteen in Bavaria, Wurtemburg, 
Saxony, Baden and Hessen, for both town and country popula- 
tion. 

In Germany there are two types, (i) General, (2) Indus- 
trial. The idea originated in instruction in Christianity in 1870. 
In 1891 by imperial decree it was made compulsory for employers 
and parents to send children to continuation schools where estab- 
lished. For a time the work was done Sundays and evenings, but 
the tendency now, as in America, is to take six or eight hours a 
week from work time. Industrial and technical instruction is 
along the line of work during employment. In Germany the con- 
tinuation school is not responsible to the ministry of "Public 
Worship, Instruction and Public Health," but to the departments 
of trade and commerce and agriculture. 

Let us now consider some of the points involved in the dif- 
ferent types of continuation schools. As I have already brought 
out, there are schools taking but a few hours a week for those 
with regular jobs, schools taking half a day — so that two young 
people fill the same desk and the same job each day — and eve- 
ning schools. 

The evening school does not warrant attention for people 
under eighteen. As I have already said, evening schools should 
be voluntary, but day school compulsory, otherwise employers 
will prevent their youthful workmen from making use of the 
opportunity except at night when mind and body are fatigued. 
The number of public-spirited employers is too small to make 
voluntary day schools a success. In Cincinnati it was found 
night work did not attract the apprentice. Ten hours concen- 



202 SELECTED ARTICLES 

trated attention to a machine leaves little energy for study, and 
the city has many more alluring ways of passing an evening. 

The first use of the part-time plan in the United States was 
by the University of Cincinnati Engineering Department in 1906. 

It has since been started in Fitchburg, Beverly and Quincy, 
Mass. Conditions in these cities are typical enough to show that 
some type is adaptable to any community's need. At Fitchburg 
the course is of four year's duration. The first year is in high 
school, and the next three years alternate weekly between <^hop 
and school. The boys are paid 10 cents an hour the first year at 
work, II cents an hour in the second year, and 12^2 cents an 
hour in the third year. Because of increased interest, ambition 
and efificiency, employers find they do not lose by allowing two 
boys to take turns at a job. 

Since under the half-time plan only twenty weeks a year are 
spent in school the time should be spent on subjects of practical 
value, as English, current events, arithmetic, drawing, civics and 
sociology, chemistry, physics, electricity and mechanics. 

Frank M. Leavitt reports that at Fitchburg boys on part time 
have "no difficulty in keeping up their social standing. They 
constitute the major portion of football, basketball and base- 
ball teams, and hold class offices." 

It is a significant fact that the Quincy continuation school 
has not lost a boy until the course was completed, when we re- 
member the per cent that drop out of our elementary and sec- 
ondary schools. Promotion at Quincy is irregular, the bright go 
fast, and the average take three years. The school has absolute 
control of the boys and assumes full responsibility. 

However, the half-time plan is adapted only to those who are 
fairly well-to-do, to those whose only trouble is that they are 
uninterested in regular academic work. For those who can 
afford to spend but a few hours a week away from work, and 
who leave school before finishing the eighth grade the tendency 
is toward the six- to twelve-hour-a-week plan. 

Here again Cincinnati is one of the best examples, since it 
has schools for boys who work most of the week but attend 
school four hours. These boys receive pay for attendance and 
are docked for absence by employers. The school handles them 
in groups divided according to proficiency. The cost per pupil, 
according, to F. B. Dyer, superintendent of schools, is $15 a year. 

H. E. Miles is accomplishing wonderful things in Wisconsin. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 203 

Forty thousand pupils were given vocational education five hours 
a week in 1913. These children are also paid the same wage as 
when they worked full time. The Wisconsin law is compulsory 
for those who are 14 to 16, unless the child has finished the 
eighth grade. The annual cost per child was $10, or less than 
half that of the common school, while the cost for similar train- 
ing before the state took hold had been $300 in private schools. 

Many problems have remained unsolved, and some new ones 
have developed for those who are pioneering in this field. 

It is difficult to make continuation technical schools practical 
unless industries of a community are homogeneous, and the 
community can agree that it would be advantageous to supply 
more and better men for such industry. There is danger of 
creating more printers, mechanics, etc., than the trade will bear, 
and it is an expensive proposition to educate a man to a skilled 
position only to find the labor market in that trade is over- 
crowded. Many think such is the condition of our stenography 
and bookkeeping departments to-day. We are making book- 
keepers only for them to find that they must learn something else 
in order to get work. 

Then there is the industrial problem of a disastrous com- 
petition with adult labor. There is no adequate solution of the 
difficulty, although a limitation of the proportion of apprentices 
to journeymen goes part way. Possibly a minimum wage for 
men would be sufficient. 

The editor of the Contemporary Review says : 

At all cost we must avoid the German danger of "over-emphasis of tech- 
nical training." The object of the continuation school is to develop the 
whole man. 

However, "technical and trade training in the German sj'S- 
tem is only the starting point for the wider general training, for 
the education in practical and theoretical thinking, in considera- 
tion for others, in devotion to common interests, in social service 
for the state community," on the authority of Dr. George 
Kerschensteiner, of Munich. Around this they weave religion, 
civics, hygiene, physical development, penmanship, spelling, read- 
ing, physics, chemistry, etc. Even the "American Federation of 
Labor Magazine" warns us that there is a growing feeling that 
in industrial education the human elements must be recognized 
and can not be so disregarded as to make the future workers 



564 SELECTED ARTICLES 

mere automatic machines. Dexterity must be based on insight. 

At first thought it might seem necessary to have such an ex- 
pensive dupHcation of machinery and tools that the plan is im- 
practical. But such is not the case. The school could be in con- 
stant use. It should be located in the center of the industrial 
district and the pupils so organized that some would come in the 
morning and some in the afternoon, some Monday, some Tues- 
day, and so on for six days of the week. It should be in the 
industrial district so it would not be far to or from work, and 
easily accessible from homes in every part of the city. 

Germany has found that employers have a more direct inter- 
est if they bear some share of the cost of the attendance of 
their apprentices. So they must provide material and cooperate 
in the selection of teachers and the conduct of examinations. 
Many employers in England have agreed to pick their appren- 
tices from those who will go to continuation schools. Since the 
plan is voluntary in England it has been necessary for the In- 
dustrial Education Board to take steps along this line to stim- 
ulate the interest of the boys in the value of attending. 

For those who are opposed to child labor it is encouraging 
to note a tendency to discourage exploitation of children when 
the employer has to bother with compulsory continuation 
schooling. 

Dr. Kerschensteiner compliments the American regular 
schools on the opportunity given for student activity, and says 
that it is especially adapted to continuation schools, though in 
Germany it is lacking everywhere. Leagues, societies, frater- 
nities, associations, debating clubs, music clubs, self-government 
should be introduced in the system, providing the teachers can 
enlist them in the service of school interests. 

Carroll G. Pearse, formerly superintendent of schools, Mil- 
waukee, Wisconsin, page 571 of the report of the National Edu- 
cation Association Meeting of 1912 in Salt Lake City, says : , 

The selection of teachers for continuation schools is of first importance; 
only the best teachers can be used. People who are in school only a few 
hours each week must have the best equipment and instruction; their time 
is precious. 

At Cincinnati the chief difficulty has not been to secure the 
interest of the community, employers or boys, but to get prac- 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 205 

tical and inspiring teachers. They have come to the plan of 
taking a man from a shop to handle the school. They try to 
get one with a liberal as well as practical education. Unless 
employers have confidence in the teacher they do not like to 
co-operate. The lack of confidence in the teachers is what makes 
employers so opposed to technical training in schools of to-day, 
when there is any opposition at all. Part time in practise would 
largely meet this. The instructor problem must be the hardest 
in Germany also, for there is a German saying, "God knows 
everything, and the German professor knows everything better." 
One of the main reasons continuation schools have advanced 
faster in Germany than here is the difference in the character 
of the industries and school division points. Few American boys 
become apprenticed. The law says they shall not leave school 
until fifteen, but at that age they have finished the grade school 
and should be in the high school. In Germany boys and girls 
begin apprenticeship at 14, and they are not dissatisfied with 
using children of this age. Dr. Kerschensteiner says : 

From an educational point of view it is desirable to make fourteen the 
age for commencing, for there can be no doubt that working at a trade is or 
might be an essential factor in the formation of character. Nothing strength- 
ens character more than honest trade work. Nothing so crystallizes the 
crude charcoal of childhood into diamonds of humanity as systematic self- 
directed effort during adolescence. 

However it must not be allowed to become drudgery. This 
is where part time or continuation schools step in and expand 
the blind alley and make possible a future. To this end our gram- 
mar school should be lengthened two years, which would make 
the finishing age about sixteen, some would then enter industry 
and continuation schools, others would go on to high school, 
which should be extended two years to take what are now col- 
lege subjects. Then a chosen few would go to a real university 
of three years leading to an M.A. degree. 

If the United States is to maintain a place among countries 
of the best educational advantages it must face this need. There 
is need of a strong personality to keep a keen civic consciousness 
on the duty of the state to educate those who must be self- 
supporting. Professor Leavitt says the interest and optimistic 
personality of Dr. Kerschensteiner had much to do with making 
Munich the best example of this type of school. 



2o6 SELECTED ARTICLES 

Political, social and economic conditions are so interwoven 
with the educational system that any progress or enlargement of 
the scope of the school will produce vital improvements in 
American citizenship. Let each state do its share to help rhose 
millions who enter industry without adequate general and tech- 
nical training. 



COMMERCIAL EDUCATION 

SECONDARY COMMERCIAL SCHOOLS 
IN GERMANY' 

From one point of view the middle or secondary commercial 
schools are the oldest of all types of German commercial schools, 
for they belong to the general Real- school group. Francke is 
commonly reputed to have laid the foundation of this modern 
movement in his organization at Halle (1698), when he set 
apart a separate secondary school (Padagogium) for those chil- 
dren who were not going further in their studies, but were look- 
ing forward to commercial work, administration of estates, and 
allied undertakings. In 1747^ Hecker founded his first Real- 
school (an institution that still exists in Berlin as the Konig- 
liches Kaiser Whilhelms- Realgymnasium), wherein was found 
a special "manufacturers', commercial and business" class, with 
commercial correspondence and bookkeeping as important sub- 
jects of instruction. Had the ill starred Philanthropist move- 
ment under Basedow and his followers been more sanely and 
skillfully directed, it might have played a more significant role 
in the development of the commercial movement, for each of 
these schools under this aegis had its commercial classes or sec- 
tions. "Commercial science," whatever may have been the con- 
notation of that term then, and bookkeeping, appear to have 
been the chief representatives of business interests in the pro- 
gram of studies. In Hamburg, in 1803, even the classical Gym- 
nasium had its so-called classes civicae, which later developed 
into Realgymnasium. 

1 From "Commercial Education in Germany," ip. 139-42. By F. E. Far- 
rington. Associate Professor of Education Administration, Teachers College, 
Columbia University. 

^ It is interesting for students of educational history to note how nearly 
this accords with the date of Franklin's plan for an American academy, and 
the opening of the school in Philadelphia (1743-1749). Each of these move- 
ments was the beginning of a protest against the traditional educational order 
in their respective countries, a protest that has only become effective dur- 
ing the present generation. 



2o8 SELECTED ARTICLES 

The officially recognized differentiation of Gymnasium, Ober- 
real schule, and Realschule, in 1882, and the equalization of 
privilege for graduates of the three first named types of insti- 
tutions in igoo went far toward raising the repute of the modern 
as, opposed to the classical school, and therefore put these sec- 
ondary schools with commercial courses in a much more hon- 
orable position. In the new program of 1901 the Realsclinlcn 
were officially recognized as forming the lowest and middle 
grades of the Oberrealschiden, a state of affairs that is not alto- 
gether to the liking of the German Union for Commercial In- 
struction. This dissatisfaction became more pronounced since 
the Realschule began to serve as a middle technical and trade 
school, rather than as a commercial school. 

Despite the general commercial activity throughout the land 
the middle or secondary commercial schools have not devel<)ped 
so rapidly as the elementary and university grades. 



THE PLACE OF THE HIGH SCHOOL IN 
COMMERCIAL EDUCATION* 

It is a commonplace that European countries, and especially 
Germany, have in the last decade been striving with particular 
earnestness to make their schools perform a function in the 
training of business men. England, France, and Belgium have 
perhaps not been overenthusiastic in the attempt, but they have 
been by no means inactive ; and while they have not kept pace 
•with the strides of Germany, it is yet true that each country has 
made distinct progress. In England, owing to the comparatively 
backward state of the whole educational system, the problem is 
particularly difficult. And consequently, so far as day instruction 
is concerned, only the merest beginnings of an adequate system 
can at present be discerned. In all of the Continental countries 
of importance, however, commercial education, both in quality 
and in quantity, has gone far beyond the elementary stages. 
Very naturally we look to Germany for the most significant ven- 
tures in this new field to educational endeavor, for enterprise 
in this direction is merely in harmony with the theory of Ger- 

* By James J. Sheppard, New York High School of Commerce. Journal 
of Political Economy. 21:209-20. March, 1913. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 209 

man education. Those who have read Dr. Cooley's highly instruc- 
tive report on foreign schools are familiar vifith the general plan 
and scope of commercial education in Germany. For my present 
purpose it is sufficient to emphasize one striking difference be- 
tween the German system and our own. Relatively speaking, 
no great progress in commercial instruction has been made in 
the German secondary schools. Training of this kind is pro- 
vided chiefly in the schools of continuation and of college grade. 
Of the former there are hundreds. 

While adequate provision is thus made in Germany for com- 
mercial instruction at the bottom and at the top, it is a striking 
fact that not much progress has as yet been made in the middle 
or secondary field of study. There are, of course, some hohere 
Handelsschulen and occasional commercial classes, but in gen- 
eral secondary instruction follows the traditional course. Where 
it is modernized the modification has been scientific rather than 
vocational in character. In this country, on the other hand, it 
is precisely in the secondary field that commercial education has 
won its greatest success, and where, it seems to me at least, it is 
to reach its greatest efficiency. Year by year the annual report 
of the commissioner of education shows striking gains in the 
number of students of high school grade pursuing commercial 
subjects. Even more significant, perhaps, is the establishment 
in the last few years of special commercial high schools in a 
number of important cities. New York City has two such 
schools. Others are to be found in Boston, Philadelphia, Wash- 
ington, Springfield, Mass., Detroit, Cleveland, and Columbus. 

The American high school, with its absolutely free instruc- 
tion, often with free supplies as well, and with its doors swing- 
ing wide to admit all who have completed the elementary school, 
has no exact counterpart in Europe. It is a thoroughly demo- 
cratic institution, whereas schools of similar grade abroad work 
under limitations which seriously interfere with the democratic 
ideal. Secondary instruction in this country has made enormous 
strides in the past decade, and perhaps as never before we are 
now face to face with the problem of deciding the dominating 
aims of our middle school. In theory at least it has been de- 
termined that the college-preparatory idea shall be cast aside as 
hopelessly out of date ; in practice, however, that idea still has 
a remarkable hold upon the secondary school. I intend to dis- 
cuss only the commercial aspect of vocational training in the 



210 SELECTED ARTICLES 

high schools, and to point out ways and means for realizing 
proper ideals in secondary commercial instruction. 

What are the proper ideals? To begin with, it should be 
clearly understood that commercial education involves vastly 
more than familiarity with a few such subjects as arithmetic, 
bookkeeping, stenography, and typewriting. These are of course 
fundamental and important, but it is a tremendous mistake to 
ignore the fact that the business world of today demands a much 
wider range of training than is provided in the old-fashioned 
business-school curriculum. In other words, the business man 
of today requires an equipment which goes far beyond the ability 
to record business transactions. Recorders have their place, of 
course, but doers have the far more important function. Ger- 
many's extraordinary success in building up its foreign trade is 
due in very large part to the commercial agents who have gone 
out from the fatherland equipped with a knowledge of a foreign 
language, conversant with the laws and customs of the .foreign 
country to which they go, with its economic possibilities, and 
with its particular commercial needs. It is highly desirable that 
we, too, should be able to have adequate representation of our 
commercial interests abroad, but even at home there is a big 
field for young men whose knowledge of business is broad and 
comprehensive. I am not claiming that the school alone can give 
such knowledge, but I do contend that an adequate course of 
study will put the prospective business man on the right track. 
I am not arguing for a course of study designed only for those 
who are likely to be business leaders ; there are a vast number of 
minor positions and a vast number of youths whose capabilities 
limit them to such positions. What is required is a course of 
study wisely arranged to meet the needs of the several types of 
students. Such a course would make ample provision in the first 
year or two for the sort of training requisite to employment in 
minor commercial positions. This can be done without sacrific- 
ing the necessary continuity in the course for those who carry 
it to completion. 

This brings me to a consideration of what may be properly 
included in an adequate commercial course for secondary schools. 
My experience leads me to believe that practically all of the 
standard secondary subjects, with the exception of ancient lan- 
guages and, possibly, mathematics, may well be utilized for com- 
mercial instruction. But I hasten to say that this is true only 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 211 

if the selection of topics and the method of attack be governed 
by the dominant aim of the school. In other words, the outlines 
of courses, in the same subject should differ very widely as be- 
tween the college-preparatory and the commercial divisions. 
Largely for this reason I would argue for separate commercial 
secondary schools wherever community conditions are favorable. 
The day may come when it will be realized that there is a distinct 
gain for all classes of pupils in following a method of study 
dominated by practical rather than college-preparatory aims. In 
my own city there is a decided tendency to reshape the outlines 
of study for the several subjects with a view to making them 
more practical. We of the High School of Commerce have 
naturally been gratified to note a gradual approximation to our 
own scheme of studies in a number of the items of the curricu- 
lum on the part of our sister schools of the metropolis. If this 
were generally and adequately done there would of course be 
less need for the separate special school. 

An adequate secondary commercial course, as has already 
been implied, will embrace such subjects as English, modern lan- 
guages, history, science, and art as well as the more technical 
subjects of bookkeeping, stenography, typewriting, and commer- 
cial law. It will also give an important place to the study of 
economics, a subject comparatively new in the secondary curricu- 
lum but destined to prove, I feel confident, an exceedingly valu- 
able instrument of secondary training and indispensable in a 
satisfactory commercial course. It is, however, in the special 
treatment of these subjects that their commercial value is to be 
realized. The English instruction of the commercial course will 
not be hampered by college-entrance requirements, but will fol- 
low a simple, rational plan with due regard to the interest of the 
student. It will include such matters as letter-writing with drill 
on ordinary business idioms ; the composition of telegrams ; the 
writing and answering of advertisements ; oral and written re- 
ports on commercial topics ; the preparation of a comprehensive 
and careful discussion of some particular line of business. Nor 
will training in effective oral expression be neglected. The 
power of concise and persuasive speech is of much moment to 
the business man. 

In history the emphasis will be shifted from political and 
military matters to economic and commercial phases. Fortunately 
the new school of textbook writers are giving us suitable mate- 



212 SELECTED ARTICLES 

rial to work with. In addition excellent special books are now 
available. Civics in the commercial school will be a first-hand 
study of the government as it actually afifects the student and 
will not overmuch concern itself with governmental forms and 
constitutions. It will emphasize the study of municipal activities 
and acquaint the student with the business aspects of his own 
local government. For the last half-decade we have been giving 
to first-year students in the New York High School of Com- 
merce a course in the government of the city which to my mind 
far outweighs in value the usual course in civics which concerns 
itself with a broad outline of government, federal and state. The 
latter we do not neglect, but we associate it with the study of 
American history and reserve it for the mature students. The 
National Municipal League has been carrying on a campaign for 
a number of years to secure a place in the high-school curricu- 
lum for a course in municipal activities and its work is begin- 
ning to bear fruit. 

In European commercial schools the study of foreign lan- 
guages is a conspicuous feature of the program, two and often 
three such languages being included. There is special need for 
such instruction abroad where different nationalities crowd close 
upon one another — international commerce being to them very 
much what interstate commerce is to us. Obviously no such 
urgent reasons for emphasizing modern languages exist on this 
side. Nevertheless a well-rounded commercial course will not 
neglect language instruction. Apart from their disciplinary and 
cultural values, the modern languages have a distinctly practical 
bearing on business life through the opportunities they afford the 
student of securing an intimate acquaintance with the commer- 
cial activities of foreign countries. The social and business cus- 
toms of the several countries, their imports and exports, their 
commercial relations with us and with one another, may all be 
studied now in books well adapted to secondary instruction. Ex- 
perience shows that four years of the study of one foreign lan- 
guage, with a view to securing facility in its conversational use, 
can be relied upon to insure a fair degree of fluency in speech. 
A mere reading knowledge is not sufficient for the commercial 
graduate who can well dispense with some of the niceties of 
modern-language study for an equipment of immediate impor- 
tance to him. Naturally Spanish should be one of the modern 
languages taught, though I must confess that the opportunities 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 213 

for young men well trained in Spanish have seemingly been 
overestimated. A goodly number of our young men have secured 
places through their knovvfledge of Spanish but relatively satis- 
factory openings in Spanish-American trade have not been what 
might reasonably have been expected. 

Science has been rather generally disregarded in the typical 
commercial course and yet the modern industrial world touches 
science at every turn. One great difficulty with science teaching 
in the secondary school has been that it has been too scientific. 
We have really had carefully developed logical courses of the 
college trimmed down to the secondary requirements. The 
secondary school and particularly the commercial secondary 
school should work out its own problem in its own way. Its aim 
clearly should not be to turn out scientists. That is impossible. 
It should introduce the student to an interesting field of work 
where he will acquire a distinct method of study involving doing 
and seeing things for himself and drawing conclusions at first 
hand. The peculiar commercial value of such studies as biology 
and chemistry hardly require statement. Biology, for instance, 
may be utilized to introduce the student to the raw materials of 
commerce, their production, growth, and relative values. Topics 
such as sanitation, prevention of disease, conservation of natural 
resources, sources of raw materials, plants and animal breeding, 
development of natural products will form the staple of instruc- 
tion. In the study of seeds, for instance, the pupil is led to 
make a classification of all seeds that are of commercial impor- 
tance. He investigates the method of seed selection for plant- 
ing, and the relation structure, germination, and efficiency have 
to the production of good crops and large yields. Then will 
follow the study of ploughs, harrows, cultivators, as instruments 
for preparing the soil, and of machines and methods employed 
in the harvesting of crops. This gives the pupil a meaningful 
glimpse into the great field of agriculture. Finally comes the 
study of the milling of the grain and the distribution of the 
product as a food supply. The student will learn that the find- 
ings of biology have a distinct bearing upon commercial processes, 
that all industries which concern plant or animal production are 
developed only as progress is made in biological research, and 
that the method of experiment is the only way in which real 
progress can be secured. 

Chemistry offers interesting possibilities for commercial and 



214 SELECTED ARTICLES 

industrial application in the study of processes and material?. 
Obviously the outline of study in biology and chemistry in the 
commercial course will show wide divergences from the outline 
usually followed in the general high school. Commercial knowl- 
edge will be the primary aim and the purely scientific will be the 
by-product. In New York City and other centers there is a 
decided tendency to modify the teaching of science in the direc- 
tion I have indicated. 

Today one of the chief items in the cost of producing a staple 
article is the expense of advertising it. The business world 
spends enormous sums to attract and secure customers, and, in 
doing so, makes use of many avenues of publicity. Note the 
numerous advertisements appearing in magazines and other 
publications, and observe the artistic care evidenced in their 
presentation. Not only are the illustrations well drawn and at- 
tractive, but the lettering and arrangement of descriptive matter 
are also in the best of taste. Clearly here is a hint for the draw- 
ing department of a commercial school, whose business it should 
be to develop a course of study centering about artistic lettering 
and advertising design. Hundreds of articles of commerce 
today owe a great part of their value to their artistic advertise- 
ment, and if only for the refinement of taste which it cultivates, 
the study of drawing in the business school would have a distinct 
commercial value. 

It is hardly necessary for me to dwell upon such subjects as 
may be classed under the head of business technique — arithmetic, 
penmanship, accounts, stenography, typewriting, and business law 
— for clearly their place in the commercial curriculum is obvious 
and well assured. Because of their immediate practical impor- 
tance they must receive adequate time and attention throughout 
the course. The commercial graduate properly trained in stenog- 
raphy and typewriting has a distinct advantage. While it is not 
desirable for a capable young man to settle down to stenography 
and typewriting as a permanent occupation, our experience has 
shown that training in stenography furnishes a stepping-stone 
to more important business positions. One of our graduates re- 
cently wrote me on the point. He says : "Starting out, the grad- 
uate should get his first years of training in a stenographic 
position. This gives him an insight into the work of the inner 
office, and I have found from present experience and from con- 
versations with other commerce boys that the average employer 
is only too glad to advance to higher positions the stenographer 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 215 

who shows that he is above the job." I have in mind now a large 
number of instances which support this statement, though of 
course it should be remembered that a well-equipped commercial 
graduate has abundant opportunity in other directions. 

There remains for consideration the subject whose rare value 
for commercial training has been tardily realized — economics. 
Even our best secondary commercial schools have as yet failed 
to utilize to the full the possibilities of this subject. Generally 
speaking, only piecemeal courses of customary college type are 
offered, when what is needed is a thoroughly graded course, 
continued through several years. It may well be that some other 
branches of study may have to yield a place to this new subject. 
I do not think it would require a great deal of argument to 
show that mathematics, for instance, has less to offer the intend- 
ing business man than has economics. The refinements of eco- 
nomic theory will, of course, find little place in the secondary 
course. The work should be concrete throughout and closely 
related to the practical side of business training. It should give 
much attention to what might be called economic geography. I 
am well aware that the so-called commercial geograph)^ as it is 
usually taught, is comparatively valueless. It is of little conse- 
quence for a student to acquire a lot of facts from a textbook 
about the statistics of trade. They are soon forgotten and con- 
tribute very little toward business training. 

As typical of the sort of economic work I have in mind, I 
would cite the course we give to first-year students in our 
school, as described in a statement prepared by the head of our 
economics department. It is grouped around two main ideas — 
New York as a manufacturing city and New York as a commer- 
cial city. We begin with a report on the occupations of the boy's 
family, his friends, and his neighbors, and a study of the indus- 
trial life on his block. The student is given the problem of 
classifying the occupations and grouping the workers according 
to his classifications. He is then required to study and express 
graphically the figures from the United States census and the 
state census for gainful occupations in the United States, New 
York state. New York City, and Manhattan and Bronx boroughs. 
Then he combines the figures collected by the boys of his section 
(40) and his class (500). The results show, of course, that the 
manufacturing and mechanical pursuits and trade and transpor- 
tation are the great groups of city industries. 

We take manufacturing first as being most interesting to the 



2i6 SELECTED ARTICLES 

boy, and we begin the study of the problem of the manufacturer 
from a table specially prepared by us from the census report on 
the concentration of important manufactures in forty-seven 
cities. The problem is formulated as the assembling of raw ma- 
terial, power, labor, and capital at a place convenient to the 
manufacturer's market. Each of these factors is studied in 
detail. The following are some of the topics discussed under 
labor : population ; its composition ; its growth from immigration, 
from migration, and from excess of births over deaths ; the 
effect of an increase from each source upon the efficiency of the 
workers of the city; the location .and distribution of the labor 
force throughout the city; the effect of the sanitary regulations 
of the Board of Health and housing regulations of the Tene- 
ment House Department, etc., the systems of employment; why 
the help, handicraft, and domestic systems still survive in this 
city; the important manufactures of this city, together with the 
kind of labor they use, and how the labor supply has affected 
them ; what manufactures are leaving the city on account of the 
labor; what manufactures are coming in because of an abundant 
supply of cheap labor ; the distribution of manufactures through- 
out Manhattan and the greater city, and how this distribution is 
related to the distribution of labor; how transportation improve- 
ments modify this distribution, etc. In a similar way are treated 
the problem of a supply of power, of a supply of capital, of a 
supply of raw material, and of access to a market. The natural 
advantages New York has for commerce — its harbors, its inland 
waterways, its situation, and its hinterland with its products — is 
the first topic taken up in the second half-term. The improve- 
ments of these natural advantages and the sharing of the work of 
improvement on the high seas, throughout the hinterland and in 
the harbor by the national, state, and city governments, respec- 
tively, is the second topic. The general idea of a great seaport 
that the boys formulate from a study of the great ports of the 
Avorld is that it is favorably situated on the coast where it can 
draw unto itself the products of the near hinterland and dis- 
tribute them over the world, and that it gathers together the 
products of the lands beyond the seas, and distributes them over 
the near and far hinterland. These topics are worked out in 
detail like that of the labor supply, already described. The 
course is concluded with a simple outline of the work of banks, 
trust companies, and stock exchanges in supplying the necessary 
capital for manufacture and for trade. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 217 

The boy has now secured a generalized and systematic view 
of the trade and manufactures of his city and has obtained a 
fund of detailed and specific information about the part he and 
his neighborhood play in making New York a great city. The 
boy is studying an economic unity, the metropolitan district, and 
he is comparing it, whenever possible, with the United States 
and the world. He has learned to use statistics compiled by 
others and he has helped compile some of his own. His gen- 
eralizations are economic generalizations, he has learned to 
formulate economic principles, and he has observed the operation 
of economic laws. We believe that this study has supplied him 
for his future study of economics with a concrete background, 
which will be filled out in the later years of the course by the 
study of his civic environment and his more formal study of 
commercial geography of the United States and of the world. 

This method of beginning economics can be applied in almost 
every school. The local economic unit will furnish all the mate- 
rial that the teacher can utilize. It means work for the in- 
structor, but the trained and enthusiastic teacher will find the 
task full of interest to himself and to the pupils. 

Following upon the study of the city comes a similar study of 
New York state. The chief extractive industries are considered 
■ — farming, fruit-growing, lumbering, mining, etc. — and later the 
most important manufactures and the transportation and bank- 
ing facilities. After this study of local commercial geography, 
the student is ready to go on to a consideration of the economic 
geography of the United States, taking up such topics as physio- 
graphic regions and conditions, location and distribution of 
manufactures, marketing, transportation, exports and imports. 
He will be called upon to make a careful study of some one par- 
ticular topic, using material to be found in governmental reports. 
This particular work is scheduled for the second year. In the 
third year he will make a careful study of the principal countries 
having commercial relations with the United States. 

The study of economic geography gives the pupil an excellent 
preparation for the short course in economic theory prescribed 
for the first half of the fourth year. By way of concluding the 
work the final half-year is devoted to the trust problem or cor- 
poration finance and the money and banking questions. That 
high-school seniors can do intelligent and profitable work of this 
character I think has been clearly demonstrated. Perhaps no 
other subject is comparable to economics in the inspiration it 



2i8 SELECTED ARTICLES 

gives the student to go on with his studies after the secondary- 
school days are over. I find our graduates practically unanimous 
in testifying to the great practical value of the economics course 
pursued by them. 

So much for the course of study. Of exceeding importance 
is the method of teaching. There must be a careful avoidance 
of the tendency to make commercial training merely or largely 
informational. The teacher in a commercial school who does not 
consistently employ the problem method in instruction, who does 
not strive for the secure real thinking, maj' be doing something 
interesting but he is not training business men. 

Much might be said with reference to certain auxiliary fea- 
tures of the work of a commercial school — its relation to busi- 
nuess organizations and business men ; its study of vocational 
opportunities, and its touch with its graduates in the business 
world. During the past few months we have gathered a mass 
of interesting information from such of our graduates as we 
could reach, touching upon the character of the work they are 
now doing, their progress since graduation, and the scope and 
quality of their school preparations as tested by their actual ex- 
periences in business. Our most helpful critics are not the busi- 
ness men, but our own graduates, who are able to speak defi- 
nitely of the strength or weakness of the courses prescribed in 
the commercial curriculum. 

In conclusion I would say that the commercial school ought 
not to limit its activity to day instruction. In every city there are 
hundreds of young men who would profit immensely by the op- 
portunity of securing instruction in evening courses. Many of 
these have been day students who were obliged, through neces- 
sity, to cut short their school career. Many are graduates of 
general high schools and colleges, who would gladly add to their 
business equipment. Perhaps the day may come when the com- 
mercial school may be able to give continuation courses, as is 
done abroad — say from four to six in the afternoon. If em- 
ployers could be made to see the advantages of this arrangement, 
the way would be easy. In this direction some attempt at least 
should be made to widen the usefulness of the commercial school. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 219 

"EDUCATION FOR BUSINESS." THE 

BOSTON HIGH SCHOOL OF 

COMMERCE^ 

The Boston High School of Commerce was opened in Sep- 
tember, 1906, with 142 pupils. Its membership in succeeding 
years has been 332, 554, 721, 967, and 1078. Owing to lack of 
accommodation, the school has been obliged to deny admission 
to at least 500 boys during the last three years : at present two 
main divisions of the school are one-half mile apart. These few 
statements show to a certain extent the demand in the city for 
the kind of work the school is doing. The object of this paper 
is to tell as directly as possible what that work is — to show how 
one school is trying to fit high-school boys for business. The 
paper tries to set forth some educational practice rather than 
educational theory. It seems to me eminently fitting to put on 
the market reports of a few educational experiments at the pres- 
ent time when so many new theories are being launched forth 
by educational promoters. 

In its earlier years, the school was popularly called Commer- 
cial High School, and even some official publications of the city 
used that name. The first head master of the school insisted 
that this was a misnomer. He maintained that a commercial 
high school centered its work around such distinctly commercial 
subjects as bookkeeping, stenography, and typewritting, and pre- 
pared for secretarial positions ; or, as one of the boys of the 
school said recently in class, for the passive side of business. A 
high school of commerce on the other hand, he maintained, offers 
a more liberal course and prepares for the competitive, or active, 
side of the business. A high school of commerce includes all 
the work of a commercial high school and more. This point of 
view has been quite generally accepted in the city so that we now 
hear but seldom any name other than the High School of Com- 
merce. 

The aim of the school can be stated briefly: to give its pupils 
the best possible preparation for a career of business usefulness 

^ By James E. Downey. Journal of Political Economy. 21:221-42. March, 
1913. 



220 SELECTED ARTICLES 

in Boston, either municipal or metropolitan. This statement of 
the aim carries with it the thought that the school takes no con- 
cern about any of its pupils who may wish to go to college. 
That work is being done well by other high schools in the city 
and boys who may wish to go to college are expected to go to 
one of these schools. 

It is not the attitude of the school that the boy must neces- 
sarily show some very decided business bent in elementary- 
school days to warrant his attendance at the High School of 
Commerce. The demand for service in the business world is 
great and varied : if a boy has a general notion that he wishes 
to enter upon a business career, the school is pleased to receive 
him, to train him as well as possible, and to try to place him is 
that avenue of business activity where he can use his capacities 
to best advantage. 

The school does not promise to get the boys positions ; that 
would be unprofessional, and the promise would be a hard one 
to fulfil, since the actual hiring of boys is done by agencies out- 
side the school. Our promise is to do our best to secure posi- 
tions for such boys as make a satisfactory record with us. Thus 
far our graduating classes have numbered 19, 9, 41, 91, and 113, 
and no bo}' can rightly complain of the way that promise has 
been made to apply to him. 

The course of study is largely a required one. This is so for 
two reasons. First, the teachers of the school, as a result of 
their experience and investigation, know better than boys or 
parents what steps are necessary to ttike them from the level 
from which they came to the level for which they are ambitious. 
Second, a man in business often has to do things that he does 
not like or that he is not fitted for if he wishes to discharge 
properly the responsibilities of his position in life. For this 
same reason we oflfer no apology to boys for asking them to do 
work that they do not like, or that they are not fitted for, when 
we think that such work is necessarj' for preparing properly for 
the responsibilities of business life. 

When they first enter the school, they choose between Span- 
ish, German, and French. Whichever they take they have to 
study for their entire four years. This choice is the only one 
that they have during their first two years. Their other studies 
are, in the first year, penmanship and elementary bookkeeping 
forms, elementary science, mathematics (largely commercial 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 221 

arithmetic) and English ; in the second year, history and com- 
mercial geography, mathematics (largely commercial arithmetic), 
bookkeeping, and English. The third-year studies are bookkeep- 
ing, typewriting, chemistry, and English, in addition to the re- 
quired modern language and to stenography (to be followed two 
years), or geometry, or advanced arithmetic. In the fourth year, 
besides the modern language the studies are economics, commer- 
cial law and civil government, English, and typewriting, and, as 
an additional subject, stenography (continuous elective), or 
bookkeeping, or chemistry, or solid geometry, algebra, and trig- 
onometry. During the last two years, instruction is given in 
commercial design, but this is an extra study which does not 
count toward a diploma. 

During the course, lectures are given to the pupils, a report 
of which will be given separately. Our course of study calls for 
a fifth-year special course, designed primarily for graduates who 
wish to come back to school and take a part-time course, and 
for graduates of other high schools. At present it seems inex- 
pedient to encourage this course. 

Practically all studies require five meetings a week. Each 
pupil is expected to carry five studies. 

When the school opened, in igo6, the school session in prac- 
tically all the city high schools was five hours in length, and it 
was so in the High School of Commerce during the first year. 
It was pointed out to the school during the year by certain busi- 
ness men that such hours were hardly consistent with the busi- 
ness hours of the city, and they recommended a longer session. 
Those intrusted with the management of the school recognized 
the argument and accordingly recommended the present hours 
to the School Committee, and the recommendation was adopted. 
The school now is in session five hours and fifty-one minutes — 
from 8 :55 to 2.46. Of this time, ten minutes are given up to 
opening exercises, 44 minutes to recess and passing, and 10 
minutes to light gymnastic exercises. The remainder of the 
time is divided into seven periods of 41 minutes each. These 
hours and the home lessons suggest such a plan of life as this 
for the boys : rise not later than 7 ; play after school until 5 ; 
study from 5 to 6, and from 7 or 7 :30 until lessons are finished ; 
and retire not later than 10. 

School spirit is one of the very valuable assets of any school. 
Each school has its own distinctive spirit and its own ways of 



222 SELECTED ARTICLES 

fostering it. A school which fits boys for business must have 
an individuaHty pecuHar to its problem. Special study is there- 
fore given to the question of having the school spirit help in 
turning out such young men as are expected from the school. 

A boy should leave the school with a spirit of being willing 
to work and of being willing to take whatever tasks are given 
him to do, within proper limitations ; he should take up his work 
with pleasure and enthusiasm ; he should be intensely loyal to 
his employers, and he must measure his worth by results rather 
than by hours. It is the function of the school spirit to help con- 
tribute these factors to the boy's preparation. 

The school spirit of the High School of Commerce is aided 
by a number of features which may be touched upon briefly. 
Decided effort is made to keep the pupils happy at their work, 
while the same effort is made to keep them working all the time. 
Musical associations are strongly encouraged, and about one- 
tenth of the school, during school hours under the direction of 
one of the teachers engage in some one of the musical activities 
of the school, which include a band, two orchestras, two glee 
clubs, and a string quartet. Athletics is strongly encouraged and 
practically all the boys of the school belong to the athletic asso- 
ciation. No boy whose school record will not warrant it is 
allowed to represent the school in the practical work, about which 
more information will be given later. The ideals and habits that 
go to make up a successful business man are those which are 
insisted on throughout the school. All these forces working to- 
gether throughout the school hours and through the medium of 
studies, most of which are in the course of study for their vo- 
cational value, have produced a school spirit which is very help- 
ful in preparing boys for their life-work. 

In a vocational school, there should be practical work. In a 
high school of commerce, the opportunities for such practical 
work are very great. If the co-operation of the stores is neces- 
sary, the merchants of the city are most willing to co-operate. 
In Boston, however, the work is able to stand on its feet on 
account of its own real worth. In but very few cases are the 
boys of the school taken into a store for practical work merely 
as a courtesy to the school. Usually the boys earn whatever 
they are paid. The courtesy from the stores — and it is courtesy 
we very much appreciate — takes the form of coming for their 
help to us rather than to the other possible sources in the city. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 223 

It almost seems to me that the possibiHties of this practical work 
in connection with the school are limited only by the eflForts of 
the teachers and pupils working together in searching out the 
possibilities. More and more are the boys looking out for them- 
selves in the matter of getting this practical work. The concern 
of the school seems to be more and more to foster the tradition 
in the school that a boy who looks after himself in this regard 
gets more credit in the official records of the school, on account 
of initiative shown, than a boy who is placed by the school. The 
school further concerns itself with so systematizing this practical 
work that it will be of as much value as possible to the boys. 

This feature of practical work finds expression in four prin- 
cipal ways : Saturday work, occasional assignments during the 
year, work at Christmas, and summer apprenticeship work. In 
addition, many boys do after-school work ; but this work is 
fraught with so much danger to the boy's progress in school that 
official notice is not taken of it. 

By all means of getting practical experience, the boys of the 
school earned between $35,000 and $40,000 last year ; at the time 
figures on this question were collected, there were about 900 boys 
in school. 

Saturday work is very much encouraged. Work at Christ- 
mas time depends on the boy's standing in his class work : only 
the boys of such a grade of scholarship as warrants it are 
allowed to take this work. The boys who are sent out for a day 
or two at a time during the year must also maintain such a grade 
of scholarship as to warrant it. It is from the summer work, 
however, that we expect our greatest returns. The importance 
of this feature can be estimated when I tell you that 65 per cent 
of the boys worked during the past summer. The 397 boys 
working under this scheme earned nearly $17,000. This made 
an average of over $5.00 per week for each boy while he worked. 
This figure compared with about $10,000 earned the summer be- 
fore by 352 boys. Moreover, the boys found more of the posi- 
tions for themselves this past summer : where four years ago the 
school placed directly 75 per cent of those who worked during 
the summer, this year the school placed 20 per cent. The efforts 
of the teachers are now concerned with directing a boy how to 
find a summer position and where to find one, rather than to find 
it for him. 

This practical work of the school is one of its important fea- 



224 SELECTED ARTICLES 

tures : boys plan for it as they do for their other school work. 
A boy who has had no practical experience before he graduates 
from the school is considered more or less in disgrace, and is the 
rare exception. 

Boys bring back reports for all employment work to which 
they are assigned ; these reports, filled out by the employers, are 
placed on file and are consulted from time to time as the need 
arises. 

The regular classroom work is supplemented by special lec- 
tures, which make a decided contribution to the school. Some 
of the lecturers are paid and some contribute their services. The 
general purpose of the lectures can be best explained by giving 
the general nature of several of the courses. One series given 
to the Seniors is made up of ten lectures on transportation in 
New England, six on advertising, six on salesmanship, and about 
twenty on commercial possibilities in South America. Another 
series of lectures given to the Seniors is made up of ten lectures 
on "Economic Resources of the United States" and about 
twenty-five lectures under the general head of "Office Routine" ; 
in this course are explained various details and incidentals of 
office work and convention, with demonstrations of advertising 
and salesmanship. Another set of lectures is given to the 
Junior class under the general head of "Local Industries" ; it 
comprises six lectures on the leather business, three on textile 
industries, three on banks of Boston, three on historical, com- 
mercial Boston (illustrated), and about twelve on various in- 
dustries of New England. Another set of lectures is given to 
the school as a whole upon general business, economic and civic 
subjects. 

Too much importance cannot be attached to the need of an 
efficient teaching staff. Of much more importance than a suit- 
able building, a favorable location, a proper course of study, 
abundance of books, supplies, and equipment, is proper instruc- 
tion for the special need of a high school of commerce, 
teachers are not yet trained. It will be many years before we 
have a set of teachers trained for this particular line of work 
as well as those are trained who are engaged in the classical 
education. We who are now at work must do our best to meet 
the oncoming competition in this line of work and also to gather 
such experience and information as will enable the next genera- 
tion of teachers to work more effectively. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 225 

To get the necessary kind of teachers, adequate salaries will 
have to be paid. At least six of our teachers have had offers 
from business houses at advanced salaries. A city will get in 
the way of instruction just what it pays for. If it wants only 
$1,000 work done, then $1,000 is enough for salary; but if it 
wants the benefit of service which is worth $2,000 or $3,000 in 
the open market, then it must not expect to get it by offering a 
salary of $1,500 or $1,800. If it wants as teachers men who can 
prepare boys to take up the more responsible positions in busi- 
ness organizations, then it will have to offer suitable salaries. 
The past year has seen perhaps a greater advance in teachers' 
salaries throughout the country than any year ever before. 
While we are in the midst of this movement for better salaries 
for teachers, I wish to enter a special word in advocacy for a 
salary that will attract suitable teachers into the work of a high 
school of commerce. 

A teacher in a high school of commerce must be equipped 
with a liberal education and good habits of study, and he must 
further be an authority in the line in which he teaches. He 
should belong to the distinctly commercial or semi-commercial 
bodies in his city; he should form a business acquaintance with 
the best firms of the city, and should frequently be seen in the 
gatherings of business men ; and above all he should have a great 
love for his own city and full confidence as to its future pros- 
pects. 

One of the questions that is immediately asked about our 
school is: "What are the alumni doing?" When this question 
is put to me, I am not sure what kind of answer is expected. 
The people before me know it takes time to train a person for 
a particular career. The school has been in existence six years. 
Its aim has not been to instil into the minds of its pupils get- 
rich-quick ideas; its object has not been to be able to gather as 
quickly as possible a set of statistics showing what wage the 
boys have received year by year after graduation, and showing 
how the wages compared with those of the boys of other high 
schools. Such reports as these appeal to me as being more or 
less sensational rather than professional. The aim of the school 
has been above all to develop a man, to give him such a fund of 
knowledge about his own city as was possible, and to give him 
such vocational instruction as he could assimilate in the four 
years he was intrusted to our care. We do not mean to say that 
we are not watchful over our alumni. On the contrary, we are 



226 SELECTED ARTICLES 

very watchful. When we think that they are not progressing so 
rapidly as we think they should, we try to find the cause and 
remedy it. When we think that they are trying to progress too 
rapidly, we do our best to set them right. 

In general, I should report of our graduates that most of 
them go into the distributive side of business. Very few go to 
college. 

Our principal way, at present, of getting information about 
our alumni is through a general letter in which we ask the 
following questions : 

1. Mention places employed since graduation, giving dates. Give pay 
received. 

2. Have you worked for any of these concerns during your summer 
vacation? 

3. If you have changed houses mention the reason. 

4. What parts of the school training have been most useful to you in 
your work? 

5. How could the school have helped you more than it did? 

6. Are there any opportunities for summer employment or permanent 
(Positions with your firm. To whom should communications be sent? 

7. In what lines of work do you find good opportunities for alumni of 
this school ? 

8. Can you give any information regarding other alumni? 
(Additional suggestions and information will be gladly received.) 

Information like this will be asked for from our alumni during 
the first, third, sixth, and tenth years after graduation. 

One of the lessons we try to teach is that of thrift. This is 
done in one way by not making continual appeals to attract 
away apart of the weekly allowance of the boys; in a second way 
it is done by encouraging the boys to make weekly deposits in 
the school savings bank. The object and work of this bank can 
best be shown by making a few extracts from a circular letter 
sent to the parents of all the pupils in school: 

The bank has now been in existence in school for nearly a year. The 
extent to which it has been used by the teachers, pupils, and organizations 
of the school has more than fulfilled expectations. During the year there 
were 25 bank days; the total deposits were $2,862.11; 342 accounts were 
opened; $210.70 was drawn out during the year; the balance in the bank at 
the end of the school year was $2,651.41; the total number of deposits 
during the year was 1,968; the average daily individual deposit was $1.44; 
the average daily total deposit was $106.49; the average total deposit of each 
depositor was $8.37; average total withdrawal of each depositor was $0.64; 
average net deposit of each depositor was $7.73. 

One day each week is known as "Bank Day," and during one period of 
that day, pupils desiring to make deposits go from their several rooms to 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 227 

the banking-rooms and make their deposits, the amount of each deposit being 
entered upon a "Deposit Card" which will be kept by the pupil. The 
money so received is deposited in the Home Savings Bank in my name as 
trustee. When the total amount deposited by any one pupil amounts to 
$3.00, the Home Savings Bank, on the last "Bank Day" preceding the quar- 
terly dates on which money goes on interest, will issue a depositor's pass 
book, and thereafter when the amount deposited by him equals the sum of 
$1.00, it shall be transferred by the bank to his pass book. Deposits made 
by the pupils may be withdrawn in whole or in part on any "Bank Day" 
by an order signed by both pupil and parent or guardian. Deposits of five 
cents and upward are received. On "Bank Day" the Home Savings Bank 
sends a representative to the school to receive the deposit of that day, but 
all clerical work connected with the receiving of deposits is done by pupils 
chosen for their fitness to do that work. In order that the pupils of the 
school may, in addition to cultivating habits of thrift, gain practical experi- 
ence in banking, as much of the work connected with the operation of the 
bank as is expedient is done by the pupils. They have already elected a 
Board of Trustees, each home room having a representative on the board, 
and this board has elected its own officers, a president, vice-president, secre- 
tary, treasurer, and assistant treasurer. 

To aid in assuring the success of the High School of Commerce Savings 
Bank, we ask your earnest co-operation by giving the boys all the encourage- 
ment you can. There are numerous little ways in which boys can save if 
they are reminded of them, and it should not be difficult to show them the 
wisdom of doing so. We earnestly believe that the teaching of thrift goes 
hand in hand with the training for business which the boys of the High 
School of Commerce are receiving, and we think you will agree with us that 
in no way can the school be of greater or more permanent benefit to it's 
pupils than by helping them to form early in life habits of thrift and 
economy. 

Finally, the High School of Commerce Savings Bank does not wish to 
interfere with an}' scheme of saving which certain boys of the school may 
be carrying out. In such cases, it is for the boy and the parent to decide as 
ito whether it would be a wise thing to transfer his savings to the school 
savings bank. 

The heads of departments of the school, with their respective 
departments, are as follows : Oscar C. Gallagher, English depart- 
ment; Joel Hatheway, Modern Language Department; Winthrop 
Tirrell, Economic and History Department ; Newton D. Clarke, 
Mathematics Department ; Raymond G. Laird, Business Tech- 
nique Department ; Owen D. Evans, Science Department. The 
work in salesmanship is in charge of Maurice J. Lacey. The 
men have submitted the following brief reports in answer to the 
question, "How is the work for which you are responsible meet- 
ing the needs of the school?" 



228 SELECTED ARTICLES 

Business Technique Department 

The function of the department of business technique is to 
ascertain the requirements, in the way of clerical training, that a 
typical business man would place on the output of our school, 
and to meet that demand in so far as practicable. 

Good handwriting is always demanded. In addition to the 
half-year of instruction that the pupil receives, he is required, in 
connection with his various studies, to do his written work care- 
fully and in accordance with the style of the adopted forms. In 
the Senior year, that he may be sent out to his first position a 
credit to himself and to the school, one period each second week 
is given to a review of penmanship. 

Bookkeeping is taught with the double purpose of giving a 
training in a bread-winning vocation, and of giving to those who 
may never become practitioners, such an understanding of the 
methods and purposes of accounts that they may not be at a dis- 
advantage from the operations of dishonest bookkeepers, and 
that they may comprehend to the fullest extent the conditions 
reflected by business and financial statements. Pupils are drilled 
in drawing up a large number of forms and papers incident to 
several types of businesses. Study is made of the accounts of 
retail and wholesale trading businesses, of commission concerns, 
and of manufacturing enterprises. In all these instances, the 
transaction comes to the pupil as nearly as possible in the form 
and manner that it reaches the real business house, and he dis- 
poses of the clerical end much as if he were engaged in an actual 
ofiice. A large amount of very valuable information is secured 
regarding the administration of these businesses and of the rou- 
tine of their counting-rooms. 

That portion of the student body that selects the secretarial 
course gets the same clerical training as above outlined to the 
completion of the third year and in addition phonograph}' is 
taken during the third and fourth years. The dictation given 
these pupils includes correspondence from a considerable num- 
ber of businesses, from editorials of leading daily papers, and 
from congressional matter. The thorough use of one make of 
typewriter is required, and some familiarity with one or two 
others is given. Plans are being made to introduce a phono- 
graph office machine for use in connection with the work of this 
department. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 229 

Mathematics Department 

The department of mathematics has defined its problem as an 
attempt to train boys mathematically for the work which they 
expect to enter. This, from the purpose of the school, means to 
nearly all the students some form of commercial employment. 
About 10 per cent may have a higher school in view, and for 
such boys the usual fitting courses are provided ; but these 
courses, having nothing distinctive, may be disregarded in any 
discussion of the work of the department. 

The work of the first two years is a continuous course in 
arithmetic, and in such topics of algebra, geometry, and com- 
mercial arithmetic as can be related to the course and serve to 
extend the mathematical training of the student. 

We need here to define what is needed and aimed at in this 
training. By general agreement among business men, the one 
mathematical requirement is accuracy. Rapidity is a very minor 
consideration. Neatness is, of course, an important quality. It 
is, however, plainly not a special mathematical quality, but ex- 
tends to all work. But the general demand of business men is 
for boys who can get things right. Now the problem of obtain- 
ing accuracy is one of training. The boy must be given prob- 
lems which he can do, and he must be trained to get them invari- 
ably right. The average pupil entering the high school has de- 
veloped no conscience in this particular. He is satisfied to do 
his work, and take the chances of its accuracy. To develop such 
a conscience is one of the most difficult problems which we have 
to meet, and is the aim of all our work. It is not that the boy is 
unable to do correct work, but that he is indifferent to incorrect 
work; and he must be trained until the habit of checking, re- 
peating, and revising answers becomes his settled habit. 

The method taken is largely that of individual problems. 
These problems are kept in sets, similar in scope and difficulty, 
but each different, and each boy is given one to compute and get 
the correct result. To give more interest, and impart informa- 
tion, the problems are drawn from sources in which the boys 
are interested. Some of the sources are : the reports of the 
Chamber of Commerce of Boston, the reports of the Depart- 
ment of Commerce of the United States, and the reports of the 
Department of Agriculture. 

When a boy has completed the two years' course, we expect 



230 SELECTED ARTICLES 

that he can do these things and do them correctly. He can add, 
subtract, multiply, and divide integers, decimals, and common 
fractions with small commercial denominators. He can com- 
pute simple and compound interest; he can reckon commercial 
discounts ; he can. figure the bank discount on a note ; he can 
solve the usual algebraic equations, and can express ordinary 
problems in algebraic terms ; he can intelligently interpret and 
compute formulas ; and he can use geometric principles in com- 
puting such areas, angles, and lines as ordinarily arise in life. 

This will seem a very small extension of the grammar-school 
work. But the whole purpose of the mathematical department 
is to train a pupil to do the few things that he will need to do in 
the business world and to be absolutely sure of the results of his 
work. 

Science Department 

Since our boys are preparing definitely to enter the business 
of buying and selling rather than that of producing, they need 
chemistry rather than physics. In order to allow for the course 
in chemistry, program requirements forced us to place the phys- 
ics in the first year ; so it is very elementary. 

All first-year pupils are required to take fifteen weeks, with 
five recitations per week, and without laboratory work, in phys- 
ical geography. The objects are to teach the boy how to get a 
home lesson, to give him elemental facts in the subject, and to 
show the relation of the subject to the production of commer- 
cial commodities. Then follow twenty weeks of conventional 
physics, with four recitations or demonstrations and one labora- 
tory hour per week. The subject-matter is diluted to fit the 
pupil's time and ability. There is individual laboratory work 
with suitable notebook record. This subject so treated is so 
fundamental that little attempt is made to make it commercial. 
It cannot fail to be vocational in its content. 

All third-year pupils are required to take a full year of chem- 
istry, with three recitations and a double laboratory hour per 
week. We do not believe in giving commercial tests before the 
pupil is grounded in elementary theory; so the first object of 
this course is to drill in fundamentals. After six months of 
such work, the pupil has lectures and reference-book work on 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 231 

important local industries, with commercial tests in the labora- 
tory. The topics are paper, glass, fermentation, sugar, milk, 
petroleum products, fats and soap, dyeing, etc. Such laboratory 
exercises are given as the Halphen test for cotton seed, the test 
for formadleliyde in milk, the Babcock milk-fat test, making 
soap, dyeing, the Fehling quantitative test for invert sugar, etc. 
Typical industries are visited. The object of the work is to 
give the pupil a slight idea of the scope of such work, so that if 
he wishes to elect fourth-year chemistry he may know what to 
expect. We devote the last two months to descriptive study of 
the metals, and the laboratory work is an elemental outline of 
qualitative analysis designed to give some little skill in methods, 
some knowledge of the relations of the metals, and to drill the 
fundamentals of chemistry. 

Through the entire school the work becomes increasingly 
vocational as the pupil advances. Accordingly, fourth-year 
chemistry is elective for pupils who have shown interest or 
power in that line. The purpose is not to turn out expert or 
half-trained chemists, but to give the kind of training a prospec- 
tive buyer and seller of merchandise will find valuable. Consid- 
eration is given to the buying of supplies on the basis of a sci- 
entific test ; in other words, scientific efficiency in buying is our 
theme. Our object is to be able to read understandingly a set 
of specifications involving contract for the purchase of supplies, 
to understand the purpose of the several tests there indicated, 
to know what tests are available for the buyer himself, and to 
know when the buyer ought to pay an expert chemist for an 
analysis. We take up from this point of view those commodities 
which Boston merchants handle : fuel, lime, cement, petroleum 
products, animal and vegetable oils, essential oils, packing-house 
products, soap, fermentation, starch, sugar, paper, leather, tex- 
tiles, dyeing, paints, varnishes, rubber, general food products, 
dairy products, canned goods, preserves, coffee, cocoa, tea, spices, 
flavoring extracts, etc. We have three hours of lecture, dis- 
cussion, and reference-book work, lantern slides, and pictures per 
week, and a double laboratory period. Where we can find sensi- 
ble tests within the scope of the pupils' time and ability, we make 
them. Where the tests are too difficult, we may discuss their 
purposes and theory, or we may ignore them. We have on 
hand twice as much material as we can handle in any one year. 
The interest of the pupils is all that could be desired. We try 



232 SELECTED ARTICLES 

to be sane and sensible in what we undertake, and we feel that 
we are getting results which are well worth while. In the end, 
if we can turn out boys who are good raw material for a busi- 
ness house to break in, we feel that we have accomplished all 
that is possible. 

We do not prepare boys for college and we pay no attention 
to college-entrance requirements ; if we discover boys in the 
early years who intend to go to college, we advise them to go to 
another high school. But our course is broad enough and cul- 
tural enough so that if one of our boys discovers himself in his 
Senior year and wishes to go to college, he is able to pass his 
entrance examinations. 

English Department 

The course in English is determined by the life the boys have 
to live. It aims, not to fit them for this life, but to live it with 
them from the start. Thus practical dealing with business sub- 
jects runs through the whole four-year course. It is as possible 
to secure correct, clear, and forcible English in dealing with the 
tangible conditions that everyday buying and selling present, as 
in dealing with the hazier situations that the college-Imposed clas- 
sical literature too often suggests. 

During the first two years special stress is laid upon oral 
work. Current events, reports of Boston's industries, explana- 
tions of salesmanship as the boys themselves have practiced it, 
and criticisms of advertisements in papers, window displays, 
and bill boards are constantly called for. Business letters — gen- 
uine letters — are read to the boys for criticism, and then re- 
written and answered. A special commercial vocabulary is 
definitely developed. The natural talkativeness of the boys is 
directed toward debates, and throughout the second and third 
year inter-room debates are held weekly. During the third and 
fourth years, commercial correspondence is studied intensively, 
and with the aid of textbooks the boys are drilled in all the 
types of communication that they are likely to meet. In the 
fourth year, too, there is a course in advertising. The theory 
of advertising — with illustrations at every point — is treated in a 
course of lectures. Practical application of the points made is 
secured from collections of good and bad advertisements which 
the boys make and which fonn the basis of class discussion. 
After this the boys themselves write advertisements which shall 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 233 

illustrate the points considered in the class. In all this work, of 
course, the principles of effective composition are taught, but the 
field from which the boys draw their subjects is the business 
world. 

It is poor business to have the work done by one department 
broken down in another ; so the English department and the 
others co-operate in maintaining a definite standard. The 
written papers in history, modern language, commercial geog- 
raphy, and economics are taken by the English teachers and 
corrected, and the grade of English work thus done on papers 
in another course is entered as part of the English record. Co- 
operation is carried on also by the English teachers assigning 
topics suggested by some other department and drilling the boys 
in making their answers not only correct, but effective. 

Literature meanwhile is not neglected, but here the emphasis 
is different from that of the college-preparatory course. To en- 
joy a good book, and to be able to tell why he enjoys it, is what 
we expect of a boy. Certain books are required for careful class 
reading, among them several on the college list. Besides these, 
however, every boy must read one book outside of school each 
month and report upon it in class. The school library contains 
many volumes of perhaps second grade, as literary standards go, 
but of vital interest to the boy because of the appeal they make 
to the creative side of his nature through their connection with 
the scientific, industrial, and commercial world about him. As 
far as can be judged, this emphasis upon interest and enjoyment 
in teaching literature has not dulled the moral or imaginative 
sensibilities. 



Modern Language Department 

Each pupil in the High School of Commerce is required to 
take one modern language throughout the entire course. There 
are five recitations per week during the four years. A pupil is 
allowed to take only the one language. This is chosen at the 
beginning of the course. Experience has shown that with so 
heavy a curriculum as that of the High School of Commerce, 
two languages are not thoroughly learned. Our belief is that a 
more thorough and intensive study of one language is better in 
every respect for the pupil, and will be of greater value to him 
in after-life than superficial training in two or even more. 



234 SELECTED ARTICLES 

The training in the modern languages has two sides, the gen- 
eral and the special. The course is laid out as follows : 

The first year is given to elementary grammar. This means 
in any language the inflection of nouns, adjectives, and pro- 
nouns, the conjugation of the regular verbs and the more com- 
mon irregular ones, and the application of the simpler rules of 
syntax. In every language a certain amount of grammar must 
be learned and that thoroughly at the outset, for if it is not 
learned then it will never be acquired at all. The grammar is, 
however, taught somewhat informally in connection with the 
reading. A large amount of easy narrative is read. This serves 
as a basis for exercises in dictation, conversation, and composi- 
tion. The main purpose of the work of the first year is to 
acquire the barest essentials of the grammar, to get a correct 
pronunciation, to acquire a good vocabulary of simple, common 
words and to attain ease and facility in their use. 

During the second year this work is continued ; the grammar 
is studied intensively. This is the grammar year. The reading 
consists of easy narrative. There is considerable reading at 
sight; the foreign language is used to a considerable extent in 
the classroom. There is work in composition throughout the 
year. 

The third year is primarily a reading-year. The greater part 
of the reading material consists of fiction and modern drama. 
Through the texts read and through the composition work, an 
attempt is made to give the pupils some definite, reliable infor- 
mation about the country where the language studied is spoken ; 
the course further aims to give them a practical working vocabu- 
lary of travel, or ordinary business transactions, and of every- 
day life. There is constant practice in hearing and in speaking 
the foreign language ; and a large amount of composition work 
is done, including some general practice in letter-writing. 

At the end of the third year, a boy should know his grammar 
thoroughly, be able to read average fiction, understand a good 
deal of spoken language, and be able to express his own wants, 
if not fluently, at least intelligently. The language training is 
such, that if he needs to leave school at this time he can go on 
and acquire and assimilate a large amoiuit of special work un- 
aided. 

The fourth year sums up and applies in concrete form what 
the pupil has learned in previous years. The work consists of a 
study of the language as used in commercial correspondence, 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 235 

advertisements, trade circulars, market reports, and newspapers. 
If time allows, a good play is read also. There is constant drill 
in conversation. The course in Spanish includes special drill in 
the vocabulary and forms of Spanish bookkeeping. At the end 
of the fourth year, the pupil should be able to read a foreign 
newspaper or average book with considerable ease, to under- 
stand well the spoken language, to speak with considerable flu- 
ency, and to write an ordinary business letter with reasonable 
accuracy and speed. He should know thoroughly the vocabulary 
of ordinary life, the ordinary business vocabulary, and have a 
broad and sound foundation upon which to build. 

The nature of our course prevents us from paying much at- 
tention to the history of the foreign literatures. Some attention 
is paid, however, to the life and works of the principal writers 
and allusions to political or industrial history are carefully ex- 
plained. In this way the work in modern languages is able, to 
some extent, to supplement the work of the other departments. 

The results attained in teaching American pupils to speak 
foreign languages are not satisfactory. The chief reasons alleged 
are : first, the large size of our classes ; second, the greater age 
of our pupils when beginning a foreign language. Neither of 
these reasons is valid. The main trouble is that for us the ability 
to speak a foreign language has no immediate or direct com- 
mercial or industri'J value. Incentive is lacking. A boy puts his 
time upon those subjects which he knows will be of use to 
him. The prospect of making a living out of Spanish or Ger- 
man is too remote to appeal to a boy, despite the active and 
vigorous propaganda exerted in behalf of the former. There- 
fore, in our work we must be satisfied to make the modern- 
language work a means of careful discipline, a means of impart- 
ing valuable information, both special and cultural, about our 
neighbors, to awaken and stimulate in our pupils a healthy in- 
terest in, and respect for, our neighbors and competitors, and 
to give the learner the basis upon which to build an accurate 
speaking knowledge of the foreign languages, if at any time the 
need arise. 

Department of Economics and History. 

The purpose of this department is to give the young men 
who are going out from the school such a knowledge of present 
economic conditions that they will be enabled to handle better 



236 SELECTED ARTICLES 

the big problems of modern business. In addition to this we try 
to stimulate an interest in history which will lead the pupil to 
do outside reading for himself and take an intelligent interest 
in all questions which should appeal to good citizens. 

These purposes we are accomplishing in the following ways : 

1. Our course in general history (mainly mediaeval and 
modern), given during the first two-fifths of the second year, 
serves as the groundwork of our later study of industrial, eco- 
nomic, and commercial history. 

2. The course in commercial geography, which covers the 
last three-fifths of the second year, gives an understanding of 
the products, resources, and commercial possibilities of various 
countries, laying special emphasis on the United States. 

3. During the entire third year every pupil studies the his- 
tory of commerce. In this course the development of commerce 
is followed from earliest times, and special efforts are made to 
show how our commercial institutions have developed from 
those of mediaeval times. Special emphasis is laid on the de- 
velopment of means of communication and transportation, deal- 
ing through exchanges, and the use of credit in modern business. 

4. The first half of the Senior year is devoted to a study of 
economic theory. Our aim is to present this subject in the most 
simple and direct way with constant references to concrete illus- 
trations within the range of the pupils' experience. During the 
second half of the year, the economic and industrial history of 
the United States is studied as furnishing the best illustration of 
the various stages of economic development. At the same time, 
it gives the pupils much useful information about their own 
country. 

5. Courses in civil government and commercial law also 
come under the Department of Economics. The aim in the first 
is to give each pupil a knowledge of local, state, and national 
government which will enable him to fulfil his duties as a citizen 
intelligently. In commercial law we do not attempt to teach 
enough to enable a graduate to act as his own attorney. We 
rather try to show the boy that the subject is so intricate and 
complex that the intelligent business man will consult a lawyer 
when anj' legal question of importance arises. We also aim to 
give enough knowledge of the law to enable our graduates to 
have an intelligent appreciation of legal opinions given by their 
attorneys. 

This brief outline shows in a meager way what the depart- 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 237 

ment is doing. In addition to this, by co-operation with other 
departments, much is taught which adds to the pupils' fund of 
economic and general information. Trips to business houses and 
manufacturing plants furnish the best sort of illustrative ma- 
terial for economic theory. Practically all of the boys in the two 
upper classes have worked in business houses and can apply the 
theory learned in the school to their individual experiences. 

We do not feel that our course is perfect in its present form, 
and we are constantly looking for ways of improving it. We do 
feel that as time goes on we shall be able to learn to what extent 
the work of the department is helping to turn out the kind of 
business men needed in the community, and that thus we may 
model our work more directly on the needs of the business 
world as shown in the experience of our graduates. 

Salesmanship 

That salesmanship is not solely an art, but is based upon sci- 
entific principles, is a fact that is now almost universally recog- 
nized in the business world. It is the knowledge of this fact 
that impels such stores as Wanamaker's in Philadelphia and the 
Jordan Marsh Co. of Boston to maintain schools for the instruc- 
tion of their employees in the principles of salesmanship. Ac- 
cepting the contention that, to a great extent, salesmanship may 
be taught, and alive to the fact that its graduates, for the greater 
part, are engaged in active selling, and that the same will be 
true of its future graduates, the school offers a course in sales- 
manship with a view to pointing out to the boys its basic prin- 
ciples that must be appHed when their business life begins. 

When the school was first instituted, and until the present 
year, the course consisted of lectures by a local business man 
who addressed the boys upon various matters of business life. 
This year, however, a new plan is in vogue. One of the faculty 
who has made a special study in the science of salesmanship, and 
of psychology and its application to salesmanship, and who, apart 
from the ideas gained from the literature on the subject, has 
obtained much information from conferences with business men, 
has taken charge of the course and is conducting it in both the 
Senior and Junior classes. Probably the chief advantage derived 
from the new plan is that the course is more systematized than 
formerly. 

Near the close of the last school year, the third-year class 



238 SELECTED ARTICLES 

were given four preliminary lectures on salesmanship, prepara- 
tory to their summer work. Three of these talks were given by 
the teacher in charge, while one that dovetailed into the teacher's 
plan was given by a business man. The elements of salesman- 
ship was the leading topic of these lectures. Ideals in business 
were impressed upon the minds of the boys with the hope that 
they might follow the road to success during their summer and 
later work and avoid the pitfalls that so often make failures of 
the novice in business. Other topics discussed in these lectures 
were : salesmanship, a science or an art ; need of instruction in 
the principles of business; the classes of livelihood-earners; 
divisions of business ; the inside salesman ; the traveling sales- 
man ; steps in a sale ; mail-order business ; summer employment. 
The final word was an exhortation to the boys to gauge their 
summer work by the standards set before them in these prelim- 
inary lectures. 

In the meantime, these same boys, who are now in the Senior 
class, have had practical experience in the business world and 
will have more in connection with the Christmas employment 
scheme. Then they will be ripe for the six final lectures in sales- 
manship to be given during January and February vmder the 
direction of the teacher in charge. 

Present plans call for a division of these final lessons into 
four parts : one will assume the form of an "experience meet- 
ing," at which about a dozen boys will give brief talks on their 
experiences during their summer and Christmas work ; another 
will be devoted to talks by a half-dozen graduates of two years 
ago, who will speak upon the actual conditions in business that 
await the boys upon graduation ; another will consist of a sup- 
plementary lecture, a comparison of inside and traveling sales- 
manship, to be given by an experienced salesman ; the fourth 
part will comprise three talks on the theory of salesmanship by 
the teacher in charge. These final lessons will complete the ten 
in the theory of salesmanship that the school offers its students. 

Someone may conclude that the course in salesmanship is 
inadequate for a school with business aims. Let me add that, in 
conjunction with these lectures, the practical work afforded 
under the Christmas and summer experience plans is, in reality, 
a part of the course in salesmanship, since it enables the pupils 
to apply in practice the theories presented in the lectures. View- 
ing the course in this light, one can hardly call it inadequate. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 239 

Again, demonstrations of salesmanship that are in such favor at 
present are not provided for under the new plan. Hov\fever, the 
numerous opportunities that the boys have for studying actual 
sales vifhile working in business houses more than offset the lack 
of artificial demonstrations in the school. 

As a final word, let me say, that, at present, the new course 
is in an experimental stage. Later thought on the subject may 
warrant a change. Moreover, while we realize that we cannot 
produce expert salesmen, and to do so is farthest from our aim, 
we feel that, by revealing to the boys some of the ideals of busi- 
ness life that lead to success and some of the obstacles that spell 
failure, we are not sending forth our graduates into a strange 
and utterly unknown world to perform tasks for which they are 
totally unprepared. 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 

AGRICULTURE ENLARGES CONSCIOUS- 
NESS AND HELPS ADJUSTMENT 

The study of agriculture enlarges consciousness and enables 
one to see much in what now appears little. Since man must live 
by the sweat of his brow and be housed, clothed and fed from 
the products of the soil, and since the amount of land is fixed 
while population is increasing, it needs no argument to prove 
that the study of agriculture enables one to become better ad- 
justed to his environment and gives power to adjust environ- 
ment to self. Education for culture is a noble ideal, but it is use- 
less to talk of higher culture for the great mass of humanity 
unitl they are better housed, fed and clothed, and until they have 
surplus leisure and are taught to use that leisure rationally. 

GENERAL INSTRUCTION IN 
AGRICULTURE' 

A great fault with the district schools has been an inclination 
to think that anything close at hand is too mean and common to 
be considered as subject matter for instruction. The thought has 
usually been that the school should prepare the learner for some 
brilliant calling away off where things are better and life is 
easier and more beautiful. 

As a result, the country schools have been educating boys and 
girls away from the farm. The new method is that of educating 
them to appreciate what is under their feet and all around them, 
through an intimate knowledge of the processes of nature and 
industry as carried on in their midst. 

1 From "Agriculture and Life," by A. D. Cronwell. Copyright, 191S, 
by J. B. Lippincott & Co. 

== From "Farm Boys and Girls," by W. A. McKeever. Copyright, 1912. 
by The Macmillan Company. 



242 SELECTED ARTICLES 

One of the direct means of educating the boys and girls for 
a happy, contented Ufe on the farm is to teach them while young 
the rudiments of agriculture. This method is actually being put 
into practice in thousands of the rural schools. The state of 
Kansas recently enacted a law requiring all candidates for 
teachers' certificates to pass a test in the elements of agriculture 
and also requiring that the rudiments of this subject be taught 
in every district school. Other states have similar laws. As a 
result of this and like provisions, there is now a tremendous 
awakening in the direction named. The boys and girls in the 
country schools are finding new meaning and a new interest in 
the fields and farms upon which they are growing up. 

It is a comparatively simple matter, that of teaching the young 
how the plant germinates and grows, how the seed is produced, 
and how farm crops are cared for and harvested. Likewise it is 
easy to describe the elements of the various types of the soil and 
to show how these elements contribute to the life and growth of 
the plant. The question of moisture in its relation to the plant 
life, of insects harmful and helpful to growing crops and ani- 
mals, of the bird life as related to the economic aspects to farm- 
ing — all such matters can be easily taught to children by the 
young woman school teacher. It is only necessary for the latter 
to take an elementary course of instruction herself, to read a 
number of collateral texts, and to get into the spirit of the 
undertaking. In a similar manner, instruction in regard to farm 
animals may be given, the emphasis being placed upon the con- 
sideration of the types of live stock actually raised and marketed 
in the home neighborhood. 

It must be emphasised that these matters relating to elemen- 
tary agriculture and animal husbandry can be made just as in- 
teresting and quite as cultural as any of the subjects in the gen- 
eral curriculum of the schools. Wherefore, the rural dweller 
who catches the spirit of such instruction should lead out in the 
securing of public measures and public improvements looking 
toward an early embodiment of these new subjects within the 
prescribed course of study. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 243 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION' 

The pi-incipal purpose of agricultural education is to teach 
people to think straight on all matters pertaining to agricultural 
production and rural life, and this applies to the city people as 
well as to the country people. 

We fall into an error when we assume that we are the first 
to have to meet the problem of the high cost of living. The 
problem is as old as civilization and has intruded itself as a seri- 
ous factor into every civihzation that has preceded ours. Plenty 
of food for everyone at a low cost is the newest thing under the 
sun and it also has been among the most transitory of things. 

We have dealt with the problem of too few people on the 
farm and its results, high cost of living, as tho it were a matter 
'in which the farmer alone is concerned. In truth, he is the only 
person in all the country who does not suffer from this cause. 
A situation in which there are too few producers cannot help 
being highly satisfactory to those who are engaged in produc- 
tion, just as a situation in which there were too few grocers 
would be entirely satisfactorj^ to those engaged in the grocery 
business. Such a situation would be unsatisfactory to the user 
of groceries, just as the present situation is unsatisfactory to the 
consumers of agricultural products, the people of the city. It 
is therefore the man who buys the products of the farm who is 
primarily and almost solely interested in having a sufficient num- 
ber of people on the land. He is quite as much interested also in 
the kind of people who till the soil as he is in the number of 
such people. 

What City People Should Be Taught about Agriculture. 

It is almost as important that we teach agriculture in the city 
schools as that we make it a part of the course of study for 
country children. City children should not be required to study 
the details of plant and animal production, but they should be so 
taught that they will have an interest in, and a general under- 
standing of, these basic industries. City children should be made 

^ By Henry J. Waters, President, Kansas State Agricultural College. 
National Education Association. Proceedings. 1915:193-9. 



244 SELECTED ARTICLES 

to realize that they are dependent upon those who till the soil, 
not only for their food and clothing, but also for the materials 
which form the basis of most of the city's industries. Of the raw 
material used in American manufactures, one-half of i per cent 
is derived from the sea ; 5 per cent from the forests, 13 per cent 
from the mines, and 81 per cent from the farm. The children of 
the man who answers the call of the factory whistle should be 
taught that not only the clothes which their father wears, and 
the food contained in his dinner pail, but also most of the ma- 
terials which provide him a chance to work and afford the family 
a living come from the farm. 

Those engaged in transportation should understand that it is 
the soil-produced material which affords them nine-tenths of 
their employment Merchants should be taught that nearly all 
the goods they buy and sell came originally from the farm. The 
children of the banker ought to know that a large part of the 
value represented by every dollar which reaches the bank vault 
was produced in the country. They ought also to know that in 
the long run it makes as much difference to them how much of 
each dollar remains in the country with which to build the right 
sort of family life as it does how much of the dollar reaches the 
city with which to support a city civilization. 

The city children ought to be taught that, tho the farmer has 
undertaken the most important task of any class, that of pro- 
viding the world with its food, clothing and the raw material 
for its industries, he never has had, and probably never will have, 
much to say regarding the conditions under which he will per- 
form that task. City children should understand that the way in 
which society determines the conditions surrounding the farmer 
will determine the standing and progress of both the city and 
the country. They should be trained to appreciate the limitations 
of farm production and to realize that conditions which they im- 
pose that are not to the best interests of the country people will 
not in the end be for their own best interests. They should 
early learn that no civilization has withstood the effect of the 
decay of its rural people. 

Wastes are a Tax upon the Cost of Living. 

Wasteful ways of doing business and extravagant ways of liv- 
ing are a tax upon the cost of living which somebody must paj'. 
Either the consumer must pay more for what he eats — and he 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 245 

already groans under the burdens of the high cost of Uving — or 
the farmer must take less for his products altho he already is 
lowest-paid man in the world. 

The American farmer is a business man and not a mere la- 
borer. He has invested in land, equipment, and working capital 
an average of approximately $8,000, an investment such as fairly 
classes him with the business man of the town. He is entitled, 
therefore, to an income comparable with that of the average 
business man — an income which will enable him to support his 
family as well and to enable him to pay as much toward the 
support of the school, the church, roads, and the cultures of life 
as do the proprietors of grocery stores, drug-shops, meat mar- 
kets, and of other business enterprises requiring no larger in- 
vestment and no greater intelligence. 

If society cannot pay the price for food which will yield to 
the farmer fair income, it is time society was looking into its 
ways of living and of doing business with a view to effecting 
such economies as will make this possible. 

High Acre-yields Go With Low Man-yields. 

City people have been thinking too much in terms of acre- 
yields and too little in terms of man-yields. They have not yet 
learned that as the acre-yield has gone up — the world over and 
in all ages — the man-yield has gone down. For illustration, the 
yearly farm income for all the land in cultivation in Japan is $71 
an acre, in the United States it is $15, and in Kansas it is $13.50 
an acre. The average annual income of the farm family in Japan 
is $235, in the United States, $1,000 and in Kansas, $1,560. To 
take another illustration, the average acre-yield of wheat in Ger- 
many is nearly 31 bushels, in France it is more than 29 bushels, 
and in the United States it is 14^ bushels. The average yearly 
income of the farm family in Germany is $580, in France it is 
$670, and in the United States it is $1,000. 

Intensive farming, therefore, is not the simple and easily ap- 
plied remedy for all our present ills. Intensive agriculture is 
adapted only to conditions where lands are high and labor is 
cheap. It is essentially hand farming. It uses little labor-saving 
machinery. It produces comparatively little livestock and has not 
afforded an income sufficient to provide many conveniences for 
the farm home. 

Intensive farming developed to a moderate degree has pro- 



246 SELECTED ARTICLES 

duced the peasant class of Europe, "the man with the hoe." Li 
Saxony, Belguim, and Brittany, where intensive agriculture is 
more highly developed than elsewhere in Europe, the farm 
woman frequently serves as a draft animal and is hitched along- 
side a dog. Carried to its full limit, intensive farming has pro- 
duced the Chinese and Japanese farmer, the type that can out- 
labor and underlive any other type of farmer in the world. 

Extensive agriculture develops the highest form of rural 
civilization because it gives an income above the actual physical 
needs of the family. It affords the means for procuring the 
broader cultures of life. It is the kind of agriculture that uses 
much machinery and raises much live stock, and these in them- 
selves develop the highest type of husbandman. 

So long, therefore, as society is not made to suffer undue 
hardships on account of the high cost of living, a reasonably 
extensive system of agriculture is best for everybody. So long 
as a country can get along with farms of reasonable size, it is 
inadvisable to try to force upon that countrj' an intensive type of 
farming. Indeed, no country has ever adopted this type of farm- 
ing until forced to do so by the demands of the people for food 
and for an opportunity to work. 

Society demands cheap food, and, in so far as cheap food 
may be provided without imposing burdens upon future genera- 
tions thru the waste of our resources and without imposing undue 
burdens upon the people on the land, the demand is a reasonable 
one. Low cost of living, however bought without permanent 
capital of soil, mine, and forest, is temporary and wasteful. Low 
cost of living, purchased with the manhood and womanhood of 
the rural communities, is dearly bought and destructive of our 
best asset. 

A sound system of agricultural education, therefore, stands 
squarely for high man-yields as well as for high acre-yields and 
seeks to prevent a rural class from growing up in America, a 
class that is different from, and antagonistic to, the city class. 
Every obstacle to the free intermingling and intermarrying of 
the country and town people must be removed. It must not be 
true that the town girl would rather marry a drug clerk or a 
city omnibus driver than marry an industrious young man with 
a farm. Conditions under which the best women are not content 
to live will not long attract good men. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 247 

Teaching Thrift 

Agricultural education seeks to put children and the back 
yards and vacant lots to work, producing food to assist in re- 
ducing the cost of living, and to teach these children thrift, a 
quality so lacking in the American people. Agricultural educa- 
tion teaches the boys in the country how to market their products 
and should teach the girls of both the city and country how to 
buy for the family. It should impress upon every housewife the 
relation her purchases sustain to the development of local indus- 
tries and should seek to eliminate much of the waste that we 
commit daily when we eat in Cahfornia food canned in New 
Jersey and when they eat in New Jersey food canned in Cali- 
fornia. In Kansas, the leading broom-corn state of the Union, 
we send our broom-corn to Michigan to have handles made. 

Apply the Laws of Nutrition to Raising Children 

Agricultural education is contributing much to our knowledge 
of how to feed children, for, after all, the feeding of children 
so that they may reach man's estate well developed and strong 
follows the same laws of nutrition as have been developed for 
the feeding of pigs, colts, and calves, only we have worked out 
the scientific feeding of pigs and colts and calves. 

Education the Basis of Rural Sanitation 

The country must be made a more healthful place in which to 
live. It is of comparatively little importance whether or not city 
people understand the laws of sanitation and become interested 
in the enforcement of these laws, for organized society deter- 
mines the sanitary arrangement of the home and the workshop, 
and forces the people to keep their premises clean. In the rural 
community, everything depends upon the education of the indi- 
vidual. There is no rural lawmaking body analogous to the city 
council or city commission. There is no inspecting agency cor- 
responding to that of the city health officer, city dairy commis- 
sioner, or city plumbing inspector. Thus the one-room rural 
school, poor as it is, has burdens laid upon it that are larger 
than are the burdens laid upon the city school, efficient as it is. 

Important as is the education of the city children in respect 



248 SELECTED ARTICLES 

to their attitude toward country people and country problems, 
this training is, after all, of secondary importance when com- 
pared with the education of the future farmer with respect to the 
methods he shall employ and with respect to his duties and obli- 
gations to society. He must be made to realize that he has under- 
taken a most important task and that he must discharge his du- 
ties efficiently. 

What the Country Children Should he Taught 

Consequently, country children will need to be taught how to 
produce high acre-yields without bringing themselves the evils of 
the intensive methods of other countries and of other times. 
They must be made to realize that their right to own land is an 
artificial right society may withdraw if they till the soil ineffi- 
ciently or wastefully. They must be taught how deep to plow, 
when to sow, and when to reap, and how to produce plants and 
animals that may better serve man's uses. 

Where Agriculture Should Be Taught 

It is a narrow view which limits the scope of agricultural 
education to the field of activity covered by the agricultural col- 
leges of the country. All such colleges laboring never so dili- 
gently and efficiently will not be able to train even the leaders 
required. The other colleges and the normal schools must help. 
The resources of the high schools of the country must be em- 
ployed. When all of this is done, the problem will be very far 
from being solved, because only a few of those who are to farm 
ever attend a high school, a normal school, or a college. 

It is only when a satisfactory system of instruction in agri- 
culture is introduced into the school which the future fanners 
are attending, the one-teacher rural school, that we shall be 
planting generally the ideas which will ripen into better systems 
of farming. But this education must not stop with the farmer's 
children. It must extend to the farmer himself and to the other 
members of his family and must continue thruout the farmer's 
active life. The supreme test of a system of agricultural teaching 
is made when we apply it to the man on the farm. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 249 

Early Attempts to Teach Agriculture Were Unsuccessful 

It is true that the early attempts at teaching agriculture were 
not highly successful, altho these attempts were made long after 
education in other lines had become well established. The fail- 
ure was principally due to the fact that the farmer himself knew 
more about farm practice than did the teacher. This quickly led 
to the establishment of agricultural experiment stations, research 
institutions in which the application of science to agriculture 
was studied, where the reasons for the most successful farm prac- 
tices were discovered, and where new and improved practices 
were devised. Thus for the first time in the history of educa- 
tion, a deliberate attempt was made, thru a well-co-ordinated sys- 
tem of scientific research, to create a body of knowledge in rela- 
tion to a subject which it was deemed important to teach, but 
about which so little of a definite nature was known that it could 
not be taught successfully. 

It is true that scientific research has been a part of the activ- 
ity of most institutions of higher learning since the close of the 
Napoleonic era, or when von Humboldt, as minister of education 
of Prussia, sought by this means to rebuild Germany's prostrated 
industries ; but there had not been before an organized, co- 
ordinated, and compulsory system of research as a definite part 
of a great educational program. 

The success of the investigations in agriculture, especially in 
America, has been a wonderful stimulus to research activity in 
other lines. 

Continuation Teaching in Agriculture. 

As might have been expected, the first result of this suddenly 
stimulated activity in research was the accumulation of agricul- 
tural knowledge more rapidly than it could be absorbed by the 
farmers and adopted into their practices. A way had to be de- 
vised in which to get the man on the soil, who is largely muscle- 
minded and eye-minded, to adopt these new methods. As a re- 
sult, a system of extension teaching, thru farmer's institutes, 
press articles, and farm demonstrations, grew up. It is only 
within very recent years — indeed, since the passage of an act of 
Congress by which the federal government joined with the states 
thru the agricultural colleges — that the effort to carry this knowl- 
edge to the people has become general and effective. 



250 SELECTED ARTICLES 

Thus, new as is the system of agricultural instruction, and 
halting as was its progress at the outset, it has already marked 
two distinct and important departures from educational traditions 
— one in the organized system of research thru which a body of 
knowledge pertaining to the subject was created, and the other in 
an organized system of extension or continuation teaching thru 
which parents as well as pupils were reached with this new-found 
knowledge. Both of these departures have already exerted a 
large influence upon general educational thought and practice. 

A Stable Rural People 

Agricultural education seeks to establish a permanent agri- 
culture, and it recognizes that the first essential of a permanent 
agriculture is an intelligent, progressive, and contented people. 
To bring about such a condition among the rural people, it is 
necessary that these people have, as has already been stated, an 
income equal to that of city people in its power to procure the 
real satisfactions of life. Every attempt to keep up the country 
stock and to resist the power of the city to call the best the 
country produces on any other basis than this is unsound. 
Nearly every civilization that has preceded ours has tried the 
experiment and has failed. 

But back of all questions relating to the securing of an in- 
come either thru greater efficiency as a laborer, or thru securing 
a fairer share of what that labor brings, stands the equally im- 
portant question of the utilization of this income or the coining 
of it into higher standards of family life. 

Rural people must be brought to realize that the country is 
not merely a place in which to work while accumulating the 
means with which to live in town. They must be shown how to 
expend the farm income in such a way as to give as satisfactory 
a life in the country as that which the town affords. The occu- 
pation of farming and life in the country need to be idealized, 
for it is what a man thinks of himself and his work which 
counts for most. A people never rises above its ideals. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 251 

AGRICULTURAL HIGH SCHOOLS 
IN ONTARIO' 

At present there are in the province of Ontario 10 high 
schools, 6 collegiate institutes and 5 continuation schools con- 
ducting classes in agriculture and the number is rapidly increas- 
ing. These schools are located in different parts of the province 
and represent 19 different counties. The attendance upon the 
classes is optional at present and the introduction of the courses 
into the schools is also optional, consequently the establishment 
of agriculture as a part of the high school course will proceed 
only so fast as public opinion will permit. The number of stu- 
dents now receiving agricultural instruction in the high schools 
is about 800. 

At the end of the second year of the course there is a de- 
partmental examination which may be counted as a bonus sub- 
ject. In 1916 about 190 students took this examination. This 
work includes experimental laboratory work, relating to the 
fundamental principles of agriculture, and is made as practical 
as possible. 

A course in the middle school is also provided and is arranged 
for two years, but where conditions are favourable and students 
are able to carry the work, it is possible to cover it in one year. 
There is, therefore, practically a four-year course in agriculture 
arranged for the high schools, and the equipment is paid for by 
special grants distributed by the Educational Department when 
the requirements are fulfilled. 

A further provision is made for agricultural education by the 
establishment of a "department" in the high school under the 
management of an Advisory Council composed of men engaged 
in agricultural pursuits. Such schools as provided the accommo- 
dation to carry on the department, are intended to be the fore- 
runners of regular agricultural high schools. Quoting from the 
regulations we have this statement : "When the public interests 
necessitate agricultural high schools they will be duly established 
and liberally aided by the government." 

At present one high school has organized a department and 



IQl6. 



1 By J. B. Dandeno. Agricultural Gazette of Canada. 3:1002-3. November, 

5. 



252 SELECTED ARTICLES 

two others are making arrangements to do so. It should be said 
here that hberal financial encouragement is given by the Educa- 
tion Department towards establishing and maintaining not only 
a department in agriculture but also, on a similar basis, a de- 
partment in household science. 

Minnesota has now 175 agricultural high schools and no 
county agricultural schools. Wisconsin had several county agri- 
cultural schools, but has now only one. In Michigan the county 
agricultural schools have not been a success and there is now 
only one left. These three states are pushing as fast as possible 
the agricultural high school, which is nothing more than a high 
school giving a good course in agriculture. We have now in 
Ontario 21 such schools and this number would be increased 
enormously if agriculture were recognized as an elective subject 
for matriculation. In the three states mentioned agriculture has 
a standing similar to that of other studies and may be offered 
for matriculation. 

The influence of agricultural classes is already being felt, 
for, in several instances, boys passing the entrance are attracted 
to the high school for a year or two, knowing that they will re- 
ceive some instruction on the principles of agriculture. In 
schools where such classes are not yet introduced, boys similarly 
situated stop school when they pass the entrance, for if they go 
back to the farm the high school has little to offer. 



FLATHEAD HIGH SCHOOL, KALISPELL, 
MONTANA' 

There is a county high school at Kalispell. It is called the 
Flathead High, after the aboriginal campers who just recently 
vacated the site. However, there is nothing peculiar about 
Kalispell's having a county high school, for all Montana has 
these places, where graduates from the rural schools are allowed 
the high-school education which for two centuries "back East" 
has been largely the special privilege of town boys and girls. 

Recently I heard Mr. Cummings tell a farmers' convention 
about the work of the Flathead school. "A school should meet 

* By Florence Clark. Country Gentleman. 81:467. February 2(), 1916. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 253 

the needs of the community to justify its existence" is Principal 
Cummings' simple statement of the theory he has put into prac- 
tice during the two years he has been head of the Flathead 
County High School. 

Something for Every Student 

His first efforts were directed toward getting every boy and 
girl into the high school. This he did, partly by systematic ad- 
vertising in the papers ; partly by riding 500 miles on his bicycle 
in a personal farmhouse-to-farmhouse canvass ; partly by pro- 
viding a high-school curriculum so diversified and so embracing 
that no student could help finding something in it that would 
attract him and fit him for usefulness in the world. 

The usual college preparatory course for the one-seventh of 
the students who will go to college was retained. Six other 
courses were added to it for the six-sevenths who will not go : 
Agriculture, for the boy who will stay on the farm ; normal 
training, for the girl who will teach the rural school ; manual 
training, for the trades ; domestic science, for the home ; ac- 
counting, for the store ; and stenography, for the office. 

It was found there were a good many boys who had gone 
through the rural school but were debarred from taking regular 
high-school work because they were needed on the farm in the 
spring and fall. For these boys an eighth course begins in No- 
vember and closes March fifteenth; it includes agriculture, farm 
arithmetic, manual training and English. 

There were still some boys and girls who refused to come 
because they did not want to take all the studies in any course. 
As a last resort Mr. Cummings said to these : "There are no 
short cuts to education. You cannot get credit on the school 
records for work done unless it comes up to the standard ; 
neither can you graduate from the school unless you finish the 
required work as laid down in some course. But if there is 
any study that you want and are capable of carrying, come in 
and get it." And they came. 

To help the high-school pupils in their choice of a life work 
the successful men and women in the various occupations are 
giving vocational talks at the school. A vocational conference 
for girls, a county athletic meet and a county eighth-grade spell- 



2S4 SELECTED ARTICLES 

ing contest were held. A thousand people attended the speUing 
contest. 

The normal training course as planned will eventually raise 
the standard of rural school teaching in the count}-. In the in- 
terval the Flathead faculty and students are making regular 
Friday and Saturday night trips to the rural schools to give talks 
and entertainments, dividing themselves into groups for this 
purpose. Vocational talks are to be added as soon as practicable. 
Many of the rural teachers are not qualified to teach agriculture. 
To meet their need the high school has opened its doors Satur- 
days, and classes in agriculture especially designed for them are 
held. Fifteen of the teachers are attending. 

With the cooperation of the city library circulating libraries 
have been placed in the rural schools and the books are sent out 
to the homes by the teachers. In the farmers' short course lec- 
tures on reading in the home were given to stimulate interest in 
the use of these books. 

One-lhird more students are enrolled this year than last ; 25 
per cent of last year's graduates are back taking special work ; 
65 per cent of them, Mr. Cummings says, will eventually go to 
higher institutions of learning. So far has the Flathead County 
High School traveled in the evolution of an institution that shall 
be a clearing house for the needs of the people. 



STUDENT CREAMERY AT DULUTH 
CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL' 

In the fall of 1914 the Board of Education of the city of 
Duluth, Minnesota, voted an appropriation of $150 for the pur- 
chase of a creamery outfit such as could be recommended for a 
farmer with ten cows. The equipment, all hand power models, 
consists of cream separator, combined churn and butterworker, 
butter printer, ice box, Babcock tester, acidity test outfit, salt test 
outfit, moisture test scale, butter print scale, cream scale, cream 
cans, and minor utensils. 

The agricultural department, then in its second year only, 
was already one of the most active divisions of Central High 

'By E. P. Gibson. Hoard's Dairyman. 51:698. May 19, 1916. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 255 

School ; and the new equipment was received with such interest 
and enthusiasm that in the 1914-1915 school year the embryo 
farmers made a total of 2,891 pounds of the best creamery butter 
in 170 churnings. 

This record was recognized as a nucleus around which to 
build creamery practice thoroughly systematized and realistic; 
and the outgrowth this year was a students' co-operative cream- 
ery with a bank account, a sinking fund, and typical "articles of 
incorporation." 

The Student Creamery Company of the high school is an 
organization among the boys of the agricultural department, 
similar on a small scale to the most approved type of farmers' 
co-operative creameries, for the purpose of obtaining both the 
manufacturing and the business experience of creamery practice. 
The student members produce the cream and milk by purchase, 
and sell to their creamery, profits from which they share in pro- 
portion to their respective patronage. 

The idea belongs to Duluth, it being the product of co-opera- 
tion between the high school instructor and the Bridgeman-Rus- 
sell Company, local wholesale manufacturers and dealers in 
dairy products. To reward industry and efficiency, the Bridge- 
man-Russell Company agreed to furnish the best quality of 
cream at such price concessions as to enable the creamery com- 
pany to pay student buttermakers common wages when full 
churnings are made, as well as to set aside a sinking fund of 
two cents per pound for the upkeep and renewal of the machin- 
ery that belongs, of course, permanently tq the school. This 
makes possible a representative system of cost accounting, which 
places profits on a definite basis after allowing for cost of ma- 
terials, labor, upkeep of equipment, etc. 

In Duluth, cream rather than milk must be bought for the 
bulk of the churnings, because of the local big demand and high 
price for fresh milk. At the outset it is admitted that in the 
city proper the milk business is more profitable ordinarily than 
the butter business ; and in skimming fresh milk with a view to 
ripening and churning the cream, it is necessary to produce high 
quality products and by-products and to market all these sys- 
tematically if the receipts from buttermaking are nearly to equal 
those from a milk and fresh cream business. The lesson of the 
conservation of by-products here taught is a valuable one. 

The following is the plan of operation for each whole milk 



256 SELECTED ARTICLES 

churning. Two students sell to the Student Creamery Company 
the required amount of fresh pasteurized milk, which they have 
produced by purchase through the D. C. H. S. Agricultural Club 
as agent. The agricultural instructor, who acts as advisory 
manager of the creamery, assigns these two boys to the churning. 
The milk is weighed and tested to determine its pounds of 
butterfat. Next it is warmed and separated, then both skimmilk 
and cream are tested for butterfat. The skimmilk and cream are 
promptly cooled, and, for the time being, set in the ice box. Pre- 
vious to the churning the cream is treated with a pure culture 
starter and ripened over night to the correct degree of acidity. 
The combined churn and butterworker is a hand power model 
of the best factory type, and produces the choicest of creamery 
butter. Then follow the salt test and the moisture test applied 
to the butter, and the butterfat test of the buttermilk. Quality 
of product and losses of butterfat are carefully checked. The 
butter is molded into pound prints, which are corrected to a net 
weight of sixteen ounces on an inspected and sealed butter print 
scale. The butter in neatly printed cartons, and the buttermilk, 
are in big demand when the supply is greater than the home 
needs of the student members. The skimmilk is best made into 
cottage cheese. The students pay retail prices into the company 
treasury for all the creamery products that they use or sell, and 
each two are responsible for the sale of and settlement for all 
the products of their churning. They are employed both as 
buttermakers and as "salesmen." 

The Student Creamery Company is a popular organization 
with membership open to any boy in Central High School. It 
is entirely self-sustaining and has an ample sinking fund to re- 
pair and replace all creamery equipment belonging to the agri- 
cultural department. Each member pays a deposit of two 
dollars, the total of which "stock" is placed in a local bank to 
guarantee the credit of the organization. Cash received for 
butter and all other products is also banked to enable the 
treasurer to pay all bills promptly by check. A payroll is issued 
monthly, and there are monthly reports to the student board of 
directors. At the end of each school year the balance in the 
sinking fund will be turned over to the agricultural department, 
dividends will be declared, and the company dissolved and in- 
dividual amounts of stock refunded. 

The venture now two years old is an unquestioned success, 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 257 

and the Students' Co-operative Creamery Companj^ will each 
A^ear be organized among the students in dairying for an active 
period of some two months, with the privilege of occasional 
churnings throughout the year, long enough to give each member 
a substantial short course in creamery practice. 

The creamery, however, is but one of several strong branches 
in the agricultural department of Duluth Central High School, 
and is by no means allowed to monopolize the time of the stu- 
dents in agriculture. 



WHAT THE COUNTY AGRICULTURAL 
HIGH SCHOOL IS DOING FOR 
MISSISSIPPI BOYS AND GIRLS' 

Forty-one county agricultural high schools have been estab- 
lished in Mississippi since the passage in 1910 of the law author- 
izing the establishment of these schools and providing state aid 
for them. The total enrollment in the four high school grades 
during the past session was approximately seven thousand, or an 
average of about one hundred and seventy per school. The en- 
rollment of boarding pupils during the year just closed was 
approximately thirty-five hundred. 

They represent an investment, in buildings and equipment of 
about $2,000,000, and an annual expenditure for support of about 
$350,000. Quite a number of new schools are being organized 
this year. 

The law authorized any county in the state to establish an 
agricultural high school, and maintain same by a tax levy up to 
two mills. State aid is given from $i,Soo to $2,500 to each 
school, the exact amount depending upon the number of boarders 
enrolled. The schools may be built and equipped by donations 
from communities bidding for the location, and by county bond 
issues. 

The county agricultural high school is doing distinctly and 
effectively four things for Mississippi boys and girls. 

First, it is bringing the blessings and privileges of a good 
high school education within the reach of every boy and girl, 

1 From article by W. H. Smith, State Superintendent of Education- 
Progressive P'armer. 31:816, June 24, 1916. 



2s8 SELECTED ARTICLES 

even those of limited means. Prior to the establishment of the 
agricultural high schools, the country boys and girls in Missis- 
sippi had very limited high school advantages. At the county 
agricultural high schools tuition is free and board is given at 
exact cost. 

In the second place, the county agricultural high school is 
stimulating the agricultural and home activities of Mississippi 
boys and girls. The school has been of immense help to the 
government agents in charge of the boys' and girls' clubs. 
Through its four year course in agriculture, it is shovi^ing the 
boys the real importance of farming and teaching them the 
dignity of labor. Through its four year course in home science, 
it is teaching the girls how to make and care for a home, and 
is giving the instruction in all that pertains to home life. 

Thirdly, the county agricultural high school is training Mis- 
sissippi boys and girls for service as teachers in the rural schools 
in the state. Of course, few of the schools are as yet properly 
equipped to do effective work in teacher training from the pro- 
fessional standpoint, but by giving a full four year high school 
course embracing work sufficient to cover fourteen Carnegie 
units, the county agricultural high school is doing a great work 
in raising the standard of scholarship of the rural teachers. It 
is the purpose of the State Department of Education to encour- 
age the establishment of a two year course in teacher training 
in the county agricultural high schools as rapidly as the schools 
are properly equipped for such work. 

Lastly, the county agricultural school is doing a splendid work 
in preparing Mississippi boys and girls for college. A graduate 
of a county agricultural high school is admitted without ex- 
amination into the freshmen class of any college in the state, 
including the state university. 

Thus the county agricultural high school is really the people's 
high school, and thousands of Mississippi's boys and girls are 
eagerly embracing the opportunities offered by these splendid 
institutions of learning. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 259 

THE MASSACHUSETTS HO'ME PROJECT 
PLAN OF VOCATIONAL AGRICUL- 
TURAL EDUCATION' 

You are doubtless asking yourself whether the Massachusetts 
plan of vocational agricultural education has been thoughtfully 
undertaken and whether it is yielding practical results. It is a 
big subject. I have over four hundred and fifty slides on it. 
Those which I am going to show you are a very short set, 
selected almost at random ; and I hope you will believe me when 
I say that they are not in any sense the best slides. They are 
simply a set of slides selected to fit the time assigned. The most 
I can hope for is to give you a quick flight over the field — merely 
a bird's-eye view of our plan and some of the results. 

First, I invite you to consider a little symbolism which I have 
been using for the past four or five years in the effort to keep 
my own thinking straight on this subject of vocational educa- 
tion. Remember, we are considering a type of education pre- 
sumably for pupils over fourteen years of age, namely, the 
secondary-school age. We are considering a type of secondary- 
school training. The typical high school of ten years or more 
ago was a classical high school, a general school devoting itself 
to cultural subjects. This we might symbolize by a capital C. 
We have looked up to it, and justly so. Because that type of 
school met the needs of relatively few, there were those who 
thought we ought to have a different type of education of 
secondary grade for those who desired direct preparation for 
life. Because, again, there were so many cases where the boys 
did not go to the high school because they saw in the high-school 
courses nothing that would be of use to them, as they viewed 
it, there have been those who have made new ventures in the 
field of secondary education in what has been called "vocational 
training." This we may symbolize by a capital V. 

These vocational ventures in education had a marked effect 
on the high-school courses. You will scarcely find a high school 
today which does not show considerable differentiation of 
courses. The determining factor in this differentiation is the 

* By Rufus Stimson. School Review. 23:474-8. September, 1915. 



26o SELECTED ARTICLES 

career likelj^ to be followed by the pupil in after-life and the de- 
sire that the pupil shall receive direct preparation for that career. 
Several distinct needs are clearly recognized by almost every high 
school. We have the preparation for the classical college over 
against the so-called "Latin scientific course" preparing for the 
higher technical institution. There are the courses in home- 
making for girls, and the commercial branches for boys and girls. 
In fact, a fairer symbol to represent the high school of today 
would be some such modified emblem as a large C and within it 
a small v. Much attention is still given to the cultural purposes 
of the high school, but at least some recognition is given to di- 
rect training for the career the pupil is likely to follow. 

Similarly, along with the most direct preparation for the 
career of the pupil in the vocational type of school there have 
come decided cultural or civic values. So evident is this that I 
think we must agree that the vocational school of today, in 
Massachusetts at least, must fairly be represented by a large V 
with a small c within it. 

In view of this development there have been those who have 
urged the desirability of a balanced type of training — not so 
much time given as in the cultural type of school to general 
studies, not so much attention given to direct preparation for a 
calling as in the vocational type of school — a type of school, in 
short, which might be symbolized by a rather large C superim- 
posed upon a V drawn to the same scale. So far as the Board of 
Education is concerned, we erase from consideration this middle 
type. We recognize two distinctive types of training in the sec- 
ondary field, one represented by the large C and small v, the 
other represented by the large V and small c. It is with the 
latter that we are to be concerned at this hour. 

The first slides will show you a series of pictures illustrating 
somewhat the equipment appropriate to the distinctively agricul- 
tural purposes of the vocational agricultural school. 

The Petersham High School will interest you because Presi- 
dent Eliot was one of the most distinguished men at its dedica- 
tion. This school has a beautiful building, erected in part from 
funds raised by taxation and in part from funds subscribed by 
public-spirited citizens. A small greenhouse was provided. The 
school has at its disposal about ten acres of land, on part of 
which there are a number of old apple trees that have been reno- 
vated by the pupils, and on part of which the pupils have set out 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 261 

a young orchard. I speak of this greenhouse, however, for the 
further purpose of saying that this is the only vocational school 
in the state that has a greenhouse, and because I wish to say at 
this point that we have instruction in a number of places where 
the school has not an inch of land or a head of live stock of any 
description at the school, the work of the pupil and the instruc- 
tor, in class exercises and individually, being carried out on 
farms — usually the home farms of the pupils themselves. A 
greenhouse may be an advantage, but it is not required for state 
aid. 

Outwardly the headquarters of an agricultural school or de- 
partment may appear to be like any other school building. Once 
you are inside the schoolroom, however, you find yourself in a 
different kind of a room from the ordinary schoolroom. It cor- 
responds more to the library-laboratory room or to the laboratory 
for the study of science. We cannot use ordinary school desks ; 
we need more elbow room; we have to study pamphlet material, 
data which are available only in bulletin form. We have to keep 
accounts. That is, our pupils must have room to spread their 
material out before them. For this reason small tables allowing 
for each pupil a surface 21^X3 feet are preferred. 

In all cases you will find a selected list of agricultural pub- 
lications and books with an appropriate filing system for ready 
reference. If you desired to see a good example near Boston of 
a well-equipped agricultural room, you could not do better than 
to visit the Concord High School Agricultural Department. 
There you would find, for example, an apple-packing table, made 
by the boys and used in teaching the boys. That table was also 
used at a short course in apple-packing given to twelve adult 
farmers who applied for it this last winter. In that same room 
you would find an admirable collection of samples of corn, heads 
of grains and grasses, samples of grain and grass seeds affording 
standards for ascertaining the relative purity of seeds available 
on the market, samples of vegetable seeds, samples of chemicals 
used as fertilizers, samples of spraying materials, samples of 
feeds ; you would find spraying implements. Though a school 
may have no land it may be an advantage for it to have a pretty 
complete equipment of tools which may be lent to pupils whose 
money should be carefully husbanded for buying fertilizers or 
for other needs extending throughout the season, as over against 
the pruning shears, which may be used but a few hours or a few 



262 SELECTED ARTICLES 

days in a year. In this room, you would find poultry appliances, 
including incubators, different kinds of brooders, feeding-hoppers, 
and drinking fountains. Not the least important, you would 
find a rack for farm papers and an excellent selection of pub- 
lications of this kind received from week to week or month to 
month. 

Of course, "related study" materials include non-book sorts, 
and these require care and protection ; uniform packages or 
mounts are an advantage and add to the attractiveness and ap- 
parent order of the agricultural classroom. Finally, there is a 
well-kept bulletin board. 

Now you want to know what the course of study is. That is 
usually determined by the vocation for which the individual pre- 
pares. I am now going to deal chiefly with the home-project 
plan of teaching agriculture. The home projects are graded with 
reference to the relative risks involved, the younger boys, of 
fourteen or fifteen, being assigned projects which involve the 
least risk, those in the later 'teens or in the twenties being as- 
signed the projects involving the heaviest risks, and the inter- 
mediate risks being distributed through the intermediate years 
between those ages. For instance, boys of fourteen or so study the 
elementary plan projects, such as kitchen gardening and orna- 
mental planting. Here the big item is labor, and the boys them- 
selves furnish that. In the next grade, at fifteen or over, they 
get animal husbandry, dealing with small stock, such as poultry, 
sheep and goats, swine and bees. In the third year they get ad- 
vanced plan projects, such as small fruit-growing, orcharding 
and market gardening, growing fruit and vegetables for sale. In 
the fourth year they finish with advanced projects in animal hus- 
bandry, dairying, and general farm management and agriculture 
as a business. In addition to these supervised projects for any 
given year a pupil may carry out certain unsupervised projects 
on his own account, and he usually does. For instance, he car- 
ries on kitchen gardening, which is a first-year project, through- 
out the course ; he may continue poultry-keeping, which is a sec- 
ond-year project, in the third and fourth years; and he may con- 
tinue fruit-growing and market gardening, which are third-year 
projects, through the fourth year. Once the boy is started with 
the easier projects in the first year, he is encouraged and helped 
with them throughout the four years' course, and all through the 
four years the other members of his family are encouraged to 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 263 

co-operate with him, in the interest of producing the best possible 
home garden. The training all through is a training for self- 
help. 

The agricultural instructors are on duty throughout the sum- 
mer, some of them riding weekly circuits for forty, sixty, and 
even ninety miles in going from farm to farm among their pupils. 
They do a vast amount of "county agent" or "farm bureau" work 
among the adult farmers along their routes and hold appoint- 
ments as "collaborators" of the United States Department of 
Agriculture, have the franking privilege, and work in the closest 
co-operation with the Massachusetts Agricultural College exten- 
sion service. 

The efficiency of the instructors as a unified body is promoted 
by mid-winter and mid-summer conferences at which they all 
meet at the agricultural college. At these conferences represen- 
tatives of the United States Department of Agriculture and the 
Bureau of Education are present, which tends to insure team- 
work through the instructors for the benefit of practical farmers 
as well as the boys in the agricultural classes in every locality. 

One striking feature of the results of the work is that during 
1914 the earnings of 235 boys, in connection with good work at 
school, amounted to over $42,000, all but about $4,000 from farm 
work. Agriculture, in short, is the big interest of the boys who 
succeed in the vocational type of schooling. 



HOUSEHOLD ARTS 

A BAVARIAN SCHOOL OF 
HOUSEKEEPING^ 

As the train pulls into the little station of Miesbach, Bavaria, 
one of the interesting sights that strikes a stranger is the large 
red brick building standing on a high slope some distance away, 
and surrounded by trees and hedges which give it the appear- 
ance of a stately baronial estate. It is that of the famous School 
of Housekeeping, which graduates yearly some fifty pupils or 
more. The inside of this substantial-looking house shows its 
proximity to Munich, for the simple ornamentation, the tasteful 
coloring, and the comfortable furniture bespeak its nearness to 
the art centre. The school is fitted up in the most approved and 
modern fashion as to heat, light, electricity, etc. 

The large dining-room, with its soft tints of blue and white, 
its numerous small tables, covered with spotless linen and the 
prettiest of silver and glass, looks more like the dining-room of 
a well-kept hotel than of a school. 

The kitchens are spacious, immaculate in their white tiling, and 
fitted up with every possible convenience. The preserve-rooms 
fairly glisten with jars of strawberries, pears, plums, grape-jam, 
marmalade, asparagus, beans, peas, tomatoes, sweet and sour 
pickles, etc., all grown and put up by the pupils of the school. 

There is a practical and a theoretical course, both of which 
are obligatory. The practical course includes: (i) cooking, bak- 
ing, and preserving; (2) washing and ironing; (3) housework, 
viz., bedmaking, sweeping, dusting, knowledge of the care of 
hardwood floors, and of blanket cleaning and summer storing; 
(4) flower, vegetable, and fruit growing; (5) poultry and bee- 
keeping; (6) sewing, dressmaking, mending, and repairing. The 
theoretical course comprises an advanced course in botany, chem- 
istry, physics, political economy, and household-bookkeeping. 

* By Mary Parkinson. Nation. 94:208-9. February 29, 1912, ., 



266 SELECTED ARTICLES 

The science of nourishment is also taught, as is a proper knowl- 
edge of the different cuts of meat, their average cost and weight, 
etc.; also "first aid to the injured" and how to prescribe for the 
simpler ailments in the ordinary household, and lastly the ele- 
mentary methods of caring for the health and character of chil- 
dren. 

The outdoor life presents equally wholesome and desirable 
surroundings. Here all kinds of vegetables, flowers, and fruits 
are grown, tended in the most scientific fashion by the pupils of 
the school. Lettuce and cauliflower, for instance, are grown 
under the large glass bells found so useful in the sewage market 
gardens about Paris, and the poultry, ducks, and geese are looked 
after with the utmost care and knowledge, the large result of 
which is a commendable supply of fresh eggs and marketable 
birds every week. 

The girls take turns each week in attending to the various 
household duties ; a certain number taking charge of the kitchen, 
planning all the meals, buying and paying for all the food, and 
preparing and cooking it for the whole school. Another set of 
pupils do all the sweeping and dusting, all the silver and brass 
polishing, take note of the condition of the floors, and see that 
fresh flowers are put in their accustomed places. Others, in turn, 
attend to the bees and poultry, and still others do the gardening. 
The instruction in sewing, mending, dressmaking, millinery, and 
embroidery is rich in results, and teaches method and thrift in 
buying clothes, and care in keeping them neat. Every detail of 
the daily housekeeping is thought out to a nicety, and as few 
maids are kept in the school, the pupils are made responsible for 
the proper and efficient care of the entire household. The indoor 
life prepares pretty solidly for the subsequent duties of house- 
wife and mother. It is safe to say that when these girls have 
their own establishments to manage, there will be neither culpable 
negligence nor ignorance. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 267 



EDUCATING THE CONSUMER' 

Now, it has been taken for granted through the generations 
that, since we all do consume things from the moment we are 
born until we die, consumption must be instinctive, no more 
needing to be taught than breathing. We see dimly that modern 
housekeeping has let go of production and concentrated on con- 
sumption ; but we are, most of us, a little loth to admit that an 
education in housekeeping must be almost entirely an education 
in consumption. This was not true in the past, it may not be 
true in the coming ages, but in the present and the immediate 
future it is not to be questioned ; for, as Mrs. Ellen H. Richards 
said, home economics must stand for the ideal home life of to- 
day, "unhampered by the traditions of the past." 

Time was when the woman who kept house was expected to 
be the high priestess of that dire goddess How-to-Save-Money, 
but her metamorphosis from producer to consumer has shifted 
her worship to the new deity How-to-Spend. From an all- 
round producer the American woman has become the greatest 
consumer in the world. Of the ten billion dollars spent annually 
in the United States for home maintenance, food, shelter, and 
clothing, fully ninety per cent is spent by women. Isn't the sci- 
ence of consumption, then, worthy of special emphasis in the 
training for home efficiency? 

Not many schools of home economics have grasped the fact 
that they should be per se trainers of consumers. They still 
tend to overemphasize home production ; but the best of them are 
very generally swinging toward the first and most important 
work of training the consumer — they are beginning to establish 
standards. 

"I am conscious of a standard," writes a pupil of a corre- 
spondence school from southern Illinois. "I see it in the way I 
manage my household, in my expenditure, my work. I think a 
change in my standards is now going on under the influence of 
my household studies. The change will, I suspect, consist 
largely in a shifting of emphasis in delivering me from certain 
traditional ideas." 

The standards of this lady were the inherited housekeeping 

^By Martha Bensley Bruere. Outlook. 102 -.29-34. September 7, 1912. 



268 SELECTED ARTICLES 

standards, the standards which our ancestors established through 
the long ages when they were building up the home as a factory. 

Take the matter of food. It is undoubtedl}^ for the advantage 
of the community that every individual stomach should have 
enough, and not too much, inside of it. The old standard was 
to distend its walls by mere bulk; the new school-set standard 
is to furnish it some two thousand to three thousand food units 
daily. The schools have worked out this standard of consump- 
tion through the study of protein and starches and fats, of calo- 
ries and muscle-builders and heat-producers, till they have found 
the amount and kind of fuel the human machine needs for the 
various kinds of work it must do. To build these standards is 
a question of laboratories and applied mathematics not within 
the command of any middle-class home. If all of us are to have 
the benefit of them, thej' must be brought to us by the universi- 
ties and the public school. 

I met a Pratt Institute graduate on the Chicago train and led 
her gently to tell me how much of her domestic science she 
found useful in her housekeeping. 

"Well," she confessed, "when the baby is teething, and the 
cook has left, and there is company to dinner, I don't think much 
about calories or a balanced ration, but somehow I've got the 
theory so well digested that I put the right things together with- 
out thinking about it." 

Her food standard has become a part of her unconscious 
mental furniture, like the gauge by which we measure the length 
of our steps and the focus of our eyes. 

I looked over some papers on Housing written by pupils of 
the American School of Home Economics. Says one of the 
students who lives in the country : "In the matter of house sani- 
tation the important point is to know exactly what you have to 
deal with. There is no use in taking country plumbing for 
granted. You have got to get away not only from the traditional 
ideas of the man who built the house, but from your own old 
ideas as well." 

These old ideas from which she is being freed by new school- 
set standards taught that a country house did not need an indoor 
bath-room, that the parlor was a jewel-casket to be opened only 
on rare occasions, that the children should be "bunched" in one 
room, that running water on the second floor was a luxury, that 
sanitary garbage disposal was optional with the individual. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 269 

Under the influence of her new standards she has found out 
where every one of the pipes in her house is located, what they 
are for, and how they attend to their job. She has worked out 
for herself a system of out-of-house drainage, a new water 
system, and a method of scientific ventilation. As a consumer 
of housing she has put her training in practice. 

Now, the basis of all these standards must be the ability to 
recognize quality when we see it. This is so important and so 
difficult that the Government tries to make it unnecessary. To 
establish standards — minimum standards, to be sure — has come 
to be the work of sanitary inspectors, tenement-house inspectors, 
clean milk commissioners, pure food and drug experts, depart- 
ments of street-cleaning, and a hundred more. Theoretically, 
it would be well for the Government to establish standards for 
all things used by the consumers, and so save the schools from the 
onerous duty of inculcating them, and the pupils from the travail 
of assimilation. But how shall a Government that can reason- 
ably say, "Potatoes below a certain grade shall not be used for 
human food," regulate the number of up-to-date potatoes a man 
shall eat? How shall a Government that can, and does, keep 
printed matter below a certain grade out of the mails say to the 
voracious consumer of storiettes, "Thus far and no farther?" 

Besides, an efficient Government without efficient citizens is 
not a democracy. We don't want to revert to a benevolent 
despotism, or even to an apron-string bureaucracy. The setting 
and maintenance of standards is a two-handed business — the 
establishment of standards by the Government, and the testing 
and use of these standards by an enlightened citizenship. And 
in matters where the Government has not yet established stand- 
ards of quality the initiative must come from the consumer. 

Consider the consumption of textiles — a job we have been at 
ever since we progressed beyond the wearing of raw skins. But 
the quality of textiles is still one of the unguarded frontiers of 
knowledge. In fact, the general knowledge of quality in textiles 
is decreasing; for though the specialists have grown wiser, the 
consumers, who used to know a good deal about cloth they them- 
selves spun and wove, have grown more ignorant. Have we not, 
all of us, seen our mothers place a wet finger under the table- 
cloths they were buying, to see if they were pure linen? That 
is a perfectly good test with hand-spun linen; but it is a dull 
manufacturer who can't circumvent a wet finger. We need both 



270 SELECTED ARTICLES 

the training of the schools and the Government guarantee to buy 
cloth wisely. 

It is no longer enough that cloth should be all wool and a 
yard wide — that means little. Even pure wool, when it is short 
and stiff, or soft and weak, is a poor purchase ; that there are 
qualities of cloth in which the warp and weft are so uneven in 
weight that the heavy threads pull the light ones, and the cloth 
wears itself out; that there are weaves in which certain threads 
are so exposed that they break and leave a rough surface. All 
tests of "pure wool" cloth ! 

But this is only a small part of the study of woolen fabrics, 
only a preliminary to establishing the standards of quality and 
price for the benefit of the consumer. Into these standards enter 
conditions of cloth production in the factory, wages paid opera- 
tives, taxes paid the Government, "Schedule K," freight rates, 
and the costs of selling the finished product. Nor is this train- 
ing in textiles limited to general principles. It applies itself to 
such definite things as blue serge and black broadcloth, and other 
standard products. Students of the science of consumption have 
determined that, under existing conditions of wool production, 
price of labor and tariff, the lowest cost for blue serge fifty-four 
inches wide and of efficient quality is a dollar and a half a yard, 
and that the lowest cost of a similar quality of black broadcloth 
is nearly three dollars. Will not the trained consumer who has 
thoroughly assimilated these facts realize that when either blue 
serge or black broadcloth is offered for a less price it is not all 
wool, or is wool of poor quality, or damaged, or "mill ends," or 
remnants? Of course we recognize that both good and inferior 
cloths have their legitimate uses if the consumer is neither de- 
ceived as to their quality nor overcharged. There is no reason 
why the law should prohibit their manufacture as it may well 
prohibit the manufacture of adulterated foods and drugs. All 
that the consumer needs is to be protected by an honest label. 
How could the world get along without "shoddy," for instance, 
a cloth made from odds and ends of wool fiber, usually fiber that 
has been used before, when the present production of new wool 
is not nearly equal to the demand? 

But the student has got to be taught that even these standards 
of quality are not absolute things. The perfect buttonhole may 
be produced at such a cost of time and labor that it is for the 
general advantage to use the commonplace hook and eye. It is 
not a question whether we can individually afford to pay in 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 271 

money for hand-made lingerie, but whether the community can 
afford the expenditure of so much eyesight and time and thought 
to make what is perhaps a superior product, but for which there 
is an approximate substitute ; for are not things expensive to the 
community even when we make them ourselves? 

Besides knowing what is for the advantage of the community 
and being able to recognize quality when one sees it, it is the 
work of the consumer to see that what the comunity needs is 
produced. Can one eat eggs, however wholesome, in a land 
where no hens are? I listened to one domestic science teacher 
who seemed to set me right between the covers of "Our Mutual 
Friend," where Dickens tells how "Mrs. John Rokesmith, who 
had never been wont to do too much as Miss Bella Wilfer, was 
under the constant necessity of referring for advice and support 
to a sage volume entitled 'The Complete British Family House- 
wife.' But there was a coolness on the part of the British 
Housewife that Mrs. J. R. found highly exasperating. She 
would say 'take a salamander,' or casually issue the order 'throw 
in a handful of- — something entirely unattainable. In these, the 
Housewife's glaring moments of unreason, Bella would shut her 
up and knock her on the table, apostrophizing her with the com- 
pliment, 'Oh, you are a stupid old donkey! Where am I to get 
it, do you think?" 

A good many instructors — far be it from me to call them 
what Bella did — entirely ignore the difficulties of getting the 
"salamander." 

Inextricably mixed up with learning how to get produced the 
things one wants is learning how to secure them after they are 
produced. The consumer must be trained to remove the ob- 
stacles between himself and the thing he needs. These obstacles 
are usually matters of cost — cost and its contributing causes, 
transportation, the exploitation of public utilities, the smothering 
of useful patents, and the arbitrary limiting of useful manufac- 
ture. From all over the country come letters full of the same 
things that are in the contributors' columns of the papers and 
magazines. "Eggs cost sixty cents a dozen, so we use rice in- 
stead." "Electric current for heating is so expensive that we 
still burn coal." "I would like to send Harold to college, but 
it costs so much that I cannot afford to." "Do not use butter 
in making pastry, for, though the flavor is better, the cost is 
very much more." 

The consumer and those who advise him take prices as final 



272 SELECTED ARTICLES 

things, as representing the true cost plus a fair profit, whereas 
in reality — 

Now the trained consumer knows that there is no fuel like 
electricity, so clean, so reliable, so easily controlled ; but the 
better trained she is, the more certainly she knows that she is 
as much cut off from using it as though it were ambergris. 
Why? Because it varies in price from ten to nineteen cents a 
kilowatt-hour. I have just called up the contract department of 
the Commonwealth Edison Company, of Chicago, and found that 
the net rate for family use is ten cents, exactly the same as in 
New York City. But the people of the region have taxed them- 
selves to build a drainage canal, a property now belonging to the 
people, which has developed 125,000 horse-power, about 100,000 
horse-power of which is available. This, in the form of electric 
current, at the very lowest estimate, is worth about $2,000,000 a 
year. Some experts reckon it to be worth ten times that. A 
small thing, but their own, and what could it not do if turned 
into the kitchens of Chicago at cost? Does that ten cent a kilo- 
watt-hour rate have to stand? Is it wise to teach the consumers 
that it is a Heaven-fixed obstacle to good housekeeping? They 
broke down the $1 per 1,000 feet gas limit in New York City, 
the car-fare rate in Cleveland, and the freight-rate limits in V/is- 
consin ! 

I was talking with a woman from Sun Prairie, a small Wis- 
consin town in the midst of a dairy district. 

"Oh, yes, I cook with electricity," she said. "It does cost a 
good deal now, because, you see, the plant is just new and we 
haven't paid for it yet." 
"Paid for it?" 

She looked at me for a moment in uncomprehending surprise, 
then smiled her amusement. 

"Oh, it belongs to the town, you know. We pay a good price 
for the current now — almost as much as they do in the city ; but 
as soon as we have paid for our plant we shall get it at cost, and 
then it'll be the cheapest thing we could use." 

This, of course, is on the basis of a municipally owned plant 
— a small one, that is supposed to be more costly to run than a 
larger one. 

The University of Illinois, in a pamphlet written by Mrs. E. 
Davenport, has worked out the cost of equipping a single coun- 
try house — one that can be sufficiently lit b}' thirty tungsten 
burners — with an electric plant of its own. The cost of buying 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 273 

and installing this plant is approximately $600, the cost of main- 
tenance from eight to ten dollars a year, and the cost of the 
electricity so produced is five cents a kilowatt-hour. Now of 
course Mrs. Davenport's plan involves electricity at a low voltage 
to be tised for lighting only; but the country consumer who has 
refused to consider the kerosene lamp as final may well refuse to 
let the coal range obstruct her efficiency. Aren't the problems of 
electric hght and electric heat Siamese twins? 

Certainly it is part of the consumer's job to perform an eco- 
nomic steeple-chase over the fences and the ditches and hedges 
that are between her and the things that it is for the advantage 
of the community that she should have and it should be part of 
her education to practice her in economic hurdle- jumping. 

I have been talking with Miss Snow, head of Household Arts 
work in the Chicago public schools. 

"If this instruction in housekeeping," said she, "were nothing 
but teaching the children to cook and clean and wash and do all 
the other things that are done in the home, I shouldn't be very 
much interested in it. As I see it, Domestic Science is a train- 
ing in the valuation of life relations. It concerns itself with 
government and politics and business and health and capital and 
labor and the social setting of them all. It is really training the 
consumer to live." 

And to live is to consume ! 

In the public schools, where the courses are comparatively 
elementary, the relations between life and the specific studies 
are not difficult to establish. 

Housekeeping, even the larger housekeeping which is not pro- 
duction, is but a small part of this science of consumption which 
can operate quite as directly upon a memorial statute at Wash- 
ington as upon a can of beans. 

Consumption is our one universal function, and through it 
we have power and happiness and progress, or retrogression and 
spiritual and bodily death. Some of us already know what we 
want to consume and how to get it, but it takes an educated 
social vision to see the needs of the race and how to satisfy 
them. Is there any bigger work for the universities, the 
colleges, and the public schools than to train consumers to this 
end? 



274 SELECTED ARTICLES 



BUSINESS OF HOME-MAKING' 

When vocational training began to be emphasized in the 
schools it was inevitable that the business or industry of home- 
making should be examined for teaching content. It occupies 
the time and energy of the majority of women, its success or 
failure has a vital connection with the welfare of us all, and there 
is increasing discontent with inefficiency in home-making. No 
longer can we think of homes as independent units, where the 
family may do as it chooses, but rather the home must demon- 
strate that the sum total of all the family activities, the final 
resultant of the family life, is an acceptable share in the larger 
community life. 

Modern industrialism has taken most of the gainful produc- 
tive processes from the family group, forcing the man partner 
in the family out of the home to gain an income, depriving the 
woman partner of her former share in these processes, and 
leaving her a work in the home which has to do with the con- 
sumption of goods, a work formerly shared by the man. 

It is important to note how this separation of the two part- 
ners has affected the home life. The loss to both man and 
woman of the companionship and interested assistance of the 
other during the long hours of productive labor is not made up 
by a companionship during those periods given over mostly to re- 
cuperation. If division of production and consumption is to 
remain and both the partners of the home cannot equally partici- 
pate as producers of income and directors of consumption, it is 
essential to the continued satisfaction in the partnership, to re- 
tain this mutuality of functioning as much as the free time of 
the father partner will permit. Those are the most satisfactory 
occupations which give him a reasonable freedom for the cultiva- 
tion of the home life. He must first satisfy the demands of the 
work producing the income, but where the family is deprived of 
the father's personal assistance in the home life, it cannot have 
as great a home spirit and happiness as would result from the 
combined personality of both parents; in, addition there is the 
reaction affecting the spirit and efficiency of the mother. 

* By Mrs. Harvey M. Hickok, Stanley College, Minneapolis. National 
Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. Proceedings 9th Annual 
Meeting, 19 16. 





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.276 SELECTED ARTICLES 

American conditions are demanding expert service as relates 
to the consumption of economic goods. American people have 
become expert as producers of incomes, but our increasing popu- 
lation and the lessening of natural resources even before the 
enormous waste of the great European war, have focussed 
serious attention on the use we make of the goods produced, 
we are beginning to make some progress in the economy of 
spending. The average American family must succeed in 
demonstrating its family right to purchase goods as it pleases, 
to direct its own consumption, or it may wake up to find its mem- 
bers involved in a species of slavery, where the same competent 
brains of the successful employer, now deciding what rewards 
are due the workers in production, will also decide how and for 
what these workers may spend their earnings. Since the father 
must go outside the family to produce the goods to consume, or 
their equivalent called income, the mother, left in the home, must 
adjust the family consumption to modern conditions, if the 
family is to have a safe solvent basis on which to build its 
family life. 

And the woman must be trained for her business. It is no 
more possible for a woman to manage a household instinctively 
than for a man to succeed in a business of which he knows noth- 
ing. Is there a more important subject before the educational 
world in America today than the type of education necessary to 
produce the well trained home manager or expert on the con- 
sumption of goods? Where this preparation is not utilized in 
the position of home manager of the smaller family unit, an ex- 
tension or specialization of some part of her training will be 
found a most acceptable community service and subject her the 
least to open competition with men now engaged in the usual 
productive activities. 

Despite an almost constant opposition of the woman manager 
in the home to the efforts of the educator to gather teachable 
material, the secrets of the household have been brought bit by 
bit into the schools, the material itself has become more and 
more comprehensive, and man} of the cherished traditions 
formerly held sacred in maternal conclave have been reduced to 
scientific formulae or openly disproved. There still remain out- 
posts of investigation, of course. Among these is the formula- 
tion of the facts regarding home Finance, actual investigation of 
which is openly resented by the majority of home managers. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 277 

But education, by the schools and the public press, is establishing 
definite ideas as to what is efficient family living and increasing 
emphasis is being laid on the economic functions of the mother 
partner as well as of the father partner, in order to insure 
family solvency and escape that bankruptcy, termed divorce. 

Can these functions of the woman partner, the comptroller 
of consumption, be so formulated as to be a basis of a definite 
teaching program to fit women for the business of home-making 
either in the typical family of father, mother and children, or in 
some form of an "associated group?" One vital condition is that 
the formulation must also appeal to the experienced home- 
maker, the woman already on the job; that is, it must include 
possibilities for continual i an classes to be offered to adults. 

The following analysis of the work of the woman in the 
home suggests such a formulation. The chart accompanying this 
article represents this analysis in a graphic form. No attempt is 
made to analyze the duties of the father in order to secure an 
income. The dotted lines on the chart indicate what home duties 
he can best share considering the time and energy left by his 
outside work. 

Preliminary also to the analysis it is important to note what 
is meant by "family solvency" and "family resources." 

"Family solvency is that condition arising from a wise adjust- 
ment of all the family resources where the family is able to meet 
all its immediate obligations, and in addition is conserving enough 
capital to warrant a reasonable assurance that future obligations 
will be met, and is also able to effect such transition into the 
succeeding generation of families as will insure a continuity of 
the best in race and family heritage." "It must also be under- 
stood that family resources include not only the income con- 
tributed by any member of the family from outside sources, 
but also all services and differences in value which any member 
may add to raw material before it is acceptable for family con- 
sumption, and also all those services and added values to com- 
munity life contributed by any member and thus discharging 
family obligations to the community group. Those families, 
none of whose members assist in the upbuilding of the commu- 
nity life, beyond the securing of their own safety and comfort, 
are not meeting all their 'immediate obligations,' and are allow- 
ing other families to pay their bills to that extent." 

There are seven main functions to be executed by the woman 



278 SELECTED ARTICLES 

partner in the home. First she must be a good "purchasing agent." 
She must understand and remember shifting market conditions, 
the nutritive values and costs of pure food stuffs, the wearing, 
sanitary, and aesthetic values and costs of fabrics, furniture, 
utensils, and housing. The family needs are so diversified that 
expert knowledge of many different goods, milk and shoes, 
furniture and meat, underwear and fuel, is demanded of the 
woman home purchasing agent. She must know exactly how 
much she can spend and for what physical demands of the family 
can be afforded, a distributed system, where each kind of pur- 
chase has its own allotment of the total income, will be found to 
yield the most data for satisfactory comparisons. A tentative 
budget may be drawn up, combining the past demands of that 
particular family and the best practice found workable in other 
similar families. After a conscientious adherence to this budget 
for a year, or through the seasonal changes, a more permanent 
budget may be worked for that family. Definite training in pur- 
chasing is an essential for the woman director of consumption. 
Where she fails as purchasing agent, extraordinary efficiency 
must be displayed by the father of the family or insolvency of 
the family will result. Where the man partner attempts to sup- 
ply this deficiency, either by trying to earn more than he nor- 
mally can produce or by being the purchasing agent himself, it 
may result in using just that amount of energy needed to turn 
the scale in his business affairs. 

Second ; the mother partner must be a producer of "Finished 
Goods" from raw materials. The preparation of foods from 
food stuffs, of clothing and furnishings from fabrics, the num- 
berless services connected with an acceptable arrangement of 
these finished products for consumption, and the continuous 
cleansing processes demanded in the modern home, constitute 
most of the physical labor to be accomplished by the home part- 
ner. 

A knowledge of the fundamental principles of nutrition in 
relation to food combinations, is more important than an ex- 
haustive knowledge of the old time empirical formulae known 
as recipes. It is not likely that the production of cooked foods 
will disappear from the household. The physical difficulty of 
producing heated foods in a satisfactory condition requires the 
close proximity of the consumer. No such necessity compels 
the maker of finished clothing or furnishings to be near the 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 279 

consumer. Therefore these productive processes have largely 
left the home. But the cleansing processes we shall have with 
us always, and where their physical labor can be reduced by 
household machinery, the woman manager will have more time 
and energy for other important functions. 

All the productive processes in the home are facilitated by 
the application of the principles of scientific management. There 
are many home-makers who are "forehanded" in their work. 
All the dozen or so principles of efficiency taught by Mr. Emer- 
son and others have been practiced for years by the efficient 
manager in the home, although she may not have called them 
"standardizing," "routing plans," "time schedules," "dispatching," 
"efficiency rewards," etc. 

When one adds that it is the business of the "producer of 
finished goods" in the home to employ, train, superintend, and 
suitably reward all domestic labor, an additional emphasis is laid 
on this part of the home partner's work. Whatever she knows 
of psychology, and pedagogy, sociology and ethnology, in addi- 
tion to productive processes, will find an extended field for appli- 
cation. 

The solution of the domestic labor problem is a woman's 
job, and if it is ever to be accomplished in America, the cus- 
tom and usages, as to duties and privileges of the household 
worker must be standardized. This means a co-operation and 
consensus of opinion of the women employing labor in their 
homes. Standardization is as important in home work as in any 
outside industry, and I see no reason why it cannot be accom- 
plished by women. So far women managers tend to make their 
own laws and customs without regard to establishing standards. 
Until competent and intelligent women can feel some security 
and dignity in domestic service, they cannot be expected to enter 
it, even if the net income and comfort exceeds their present 
rewards in shop or factory. 

Third, it is the duty of the mother in the home to conserve 
the family health. The beginnings of prophylaxis or prevention 
of disease, includes a conscientious adherence to prescribed food 
schedules. The close relation between dietetics and food prep- 
aration is indicated on the chart, also the connection between 
sanitation and all cleansing processes. Home sanitation will de- 
termine the limits of family neglect, but within these limits the 
family is responsible for its own health. Family safety from 



28o SELECTED ARTICLES 

communicable disease demands active interest in all questions of 
neighborhood sanitation, especially the disposal of waste. It is 
important that the father in the family lend his interest and 
assistance in these outside community problems. 

An important part of the work of the "Home Conservor of 
Health" is the recording of the regular examinations made by 
physician and dentist. Although the school is beginning to sup- 
ply this service for the children, it is just as necessary to take 
physical inventories of the adult members of the family. 

The work of the woman as "Home Accountant" is perhaps 
the least understood and practiced in America: of any of these 
functions. A family cannot be in a solvent condition with no 
definite records as to its consumption of economic goods. A 
system of keeping daily purchase records can be made simple 
enough to fit any condition of time or skill. But whatever sys- 
tem is used it is essential to truthfully record the purchases 
made. The price of a matinee ticket or the extravagance of a 
useless article of personal adornment must not appear to the 
eyes of the trusting man partner as an extra bill for meat or 
sugar. Neither can the man retain the confidence of the woman 
partner if he makes false expense returns against the family in- 
come. Such transactions are as dishonest under the family roof 
as in any more closely watched business house. 

It is necessary for the complete safety of the family that 
monthly summaries and yearly inventories, balance sheets and 
budgets be worked out and agreed upon by both partners. All 
questions of the standards of the family life must be adjusted 
to the earning capacity of both family partners, if these ma- 
terial considerations are not to overshadow continually other 
phases of the family life. Also both partners should fully under- 
stand and agree upon the conditions governing all savings, insur- 
ance, properties, or other investments affecting family welfare. 

There is no question relating to home-making which is attract- 
ing more attention in America than that of home finance. What 
other nations have done, our suddenly realized need for our 
own savings, and the efforts made by Banks and other financial 
institutions, have induced a nation-wide campaign for the culti- 
vation of thrift. The 3'ear 1916 is the looth anniversary of the 
first Savings Bank in the United States. There is an opportunity 
for our banks to interest themselves more definitely in home 
finance as only they have the machinery to cultivate certain 
capacities of the "Home Accountant." 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 281 

The fifth function indicated is that of "Regulator of Social 
Activities." One of the needs in American home life today is 
a centralized authority which has the power to regulate the fam- 
ily behavior as regards social affairs. Although a large share 
of the details of all plans for recreation must fall on the mother 
partner, it is practically impossible for her to succeed without 
the sympathetic support and assistance of the father, familiar 
with the world of men. 

The economic waste of over-amusement appears, not only in 
the excessive proportion of the income claimed by amusements, 
but also in the waste of time and strength badly needed for 
important things. A definite amusement program for the family 
would correlate the necessity for recreation, the conservation of 
time and health, and the proper budget allotment. Simple pleas- 
ures, open air excursions, informational trips to many places of 
interest can be had for the cost of carfare. A simple recreation 
schedule, alive and interesting, may be productive of invaluable 
family habits, which so largely determine that complex thing we 
call social standing. 

One of the most satisfying functions of the mother manager 
is the teaching of her children. The mother teacher has a wealth 
of the most interesting material and the advantage of the first 
six years in the child's life. It is important that definite working 
plans be made for the study and play periods. Better direction 
of the child's home activities would make more frequent the 
really natural attainments now so often called exceptional and 
precocious. Both parents are responsible for a complete union 
of the child's activities in the home with those of the church, 
school or recreation center. 

Emphasis should be laid on training the ideality of childhood. 
The child who has had an opportunity to live in an imaginative 
world at the time when he was acquiring many of the facts of a 
material existence and has learned to idealize common things, 
has an ability to soften the sterner realities of life. Thought 
habits about fairies and other good invisible forces may also 
lead to a basic comprehension for religious faith. Also whatever 
parents desire their children to preserve of family traditions of 
race and heritage must be taught as a supplementary education to 
that given in church, school, or civic center. 

Finally, the woman partner is almost wholly responsible for 
creating the home atmosphere, that intangible resultant of the 



282 SELECTED ARTICLES 

phj'sical, mental, and moral states, that pulling together of all 
the family effort to reach the proper home spirit. This crown- 
ing success of the woman's effort must have the foundation of 
successful performance, either personally or directed, of all the 
other functions. 

The thing which lives the longest in the memories of the 
succeeding generation is the home atmosphere, a subtle pervading 
influence, giving confidence and sympathy for living and work, 
reacting on family ambition and loyalty, and is the outward ex- 
pression of family happiness. 



VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 



THE FIRST JOB' 

Nearly all of us have learned to think of vocational guidance 
dynamically — that is, in terms of growing children emerging into 
a changing social and economic environment. 

The many surveys that have been made, and those now in 
course, need to be converted into machinery for giving continu- 
ous information about children and about industry, and about the 
changes taking place. We need to know week by week (and we 
shall know when we realize the need) the number of children — 
say, up to eighteen years — who go to work, and the nature of the 
work; and the number of juveniles discharged from work, and 
for what reasons. And we need to know what becomes of those 
who remain at work. 

The most favorable point for the establishment of such ma- 
chinery seems to be in connection with the compulsory school 
attendance laws, or with the juvenile labor laws. In Ohio, Wis- 
consin, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Indiana, Pennsylvania and 
some other states it is possible to make the issuance of work- 
permits a means for the automatic and continuous registration 
of most significant facts, not only in the regulation of juvenile 
labor, but in the guidance of educational policies. Pennsylvania 
last year gave her administrative officers a splendid opportunity; 
we are waiting for some power to give them the vision to use it. 

Juvenile placement service should be more directly joined to 
the schools, on the principle that a child should be under official 
surveillance until he is safely on his feet; and to the agencies 
that are cognizant of changing economic conditions, on the prin- 
ciple that the public must guard its children against exploitation. 

The more fundamental needs are those that the school has to 
meet. First of all, it is necessary to reorganize our curricula and 
our administration into a more flexible system, to the end that 
the teachers may be able to utilize the conduct and the perform- 

1 By Benjamin C. Gruenberg. Survey. 37:370. December 30, 1916. 



284 SELECTED ARTICLES 

anco of tlie pupil day by day, whether in the class-room, labora- 
tory, shop, studio, gymnasium or extra-curricular activities, as in- 
dications of the pupil's further needs in the way of opportunity 
for instruction, or training or self-expression. More and more 
schools are introducing special activities calculated to develop 
vocational ideals and vocational purposes. Normal schools and 
teachers' colleges must prepare teachers with the information 
and the viewpoint and the ideals required for the successful 
modification of instruction. 

Vocational guidance means directed educational evolution of 
living organisms ; it therefore requires tlie services of men and 
women who have the experimental intellect, the technique, social 
vision atid s>nnpathies. 



VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE' 

The present time seems to be opportune for taking account of 
the significance of the vocational guidance movement. If intelli- 
gently evaluated and directed, it has great possibilities for the 
improvement of our systems of public education. On the other 
hand, it may fail in its beneficent purpose altogether if these pos- 
sibilities are overestimated, if irrational methods are employed, 
or if impossible results are promised. 

Like most new movements, its chief dangers lie in the ex- 
travagant claims of its too-zealous promoters on the one hand, 
and the unreasoning skepticism of the ultra-conservatives in edu- 
cation on the other. Somewhere between tiiese two extremes 
will be found a reasonable vocational gT-iidance program which is 
receiving the attention and gaining the respect of a large number 
of progressive educators. 

For example, there are those who appear to believe that it is 
easily possible to develop a system of character analysis by means 
of which marked vocational aptitudes can be discovered or 
equally marked incapacities can be detected and pointed out. 
Such advocates of vocational guidance deprecate any attempt to 
counsel youth until a complete and adequate method has been 
worked out by trained specialists, and they point out the grave 
dangers which attend an "unsoientihc" plan of guidance. They 

* By Frank M. Leavitt. School Review 23:48^-3. September, 1915. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 285 

generally demand an equally thorough study of vocations and 
feel that the information thus gained should be systematized and 
prepared for use before any vocational guidance should be at- 
tempted. 

On the other hand there are those who, seeing the great diffi- 
culty of carrying out the plans of these extremists, and being 
quite w^illing to delay action and to justify the schools as they 
are, deny both the possibility and the necessity of vocational 
guidance as a school function. 

Between these extremes will be found many progressive 
school men who are proceeding on the assumption that the pub- 
lic-school system should articulate with life at many more points 
than it now does ; points well distributed between the professions 
at one extreme and the humblest vocations at the other. While 
they appreciate the contributions which scientific study can and 
will make, ultimately, to the movement, these progressive educa- 
tors see great need of immediate action, and they are proceeding 
accordingly. 

Details cannot be discussed here, but, speaking generally, 
these educators are working on the theory that vocational guid- 
ance is not a new function of education, but rather an old func- 
tion which needs liberal extension. This extension, furthermore, 
lies within two well-defined fields, the first being curriculum en- 
largement or adjustment, and the second, educational super- 
vision of those who have left the regular schools. 

The first leads naturally to the establishment of new voca- 
tional courses, the revision and adaptation of old ones, and the 
necessary "educational" guidance which will enable the pupil to 
choose intelligently from the rich educational offerings. 

The second leads, quite as naturally, to the establishment or 
improvement of evening schools, compulsory day continuation 
schools, and the inauguration of what the English term "regis- 
tration"; that is, the school employment office or "placement 
bureau." All this may be designated as employment supervision. 

We are of the opinion that curriculum improvement and em- 
ployment supervision, while they cannot solve all problems, will 
go far to meet the present demand for vocational guidance in 
the schools. Indeed, as was affirmed some years ago, "vocational 
guidance means guidance for education, not guidance for jobs," 
though "jobs" may be the ultimate goal. Therefore school offi- 
cials, even though they cannot command a vocational survey by 



286 SELECTED ARTICLES 

trained investigators, should take an active part in the vocational 
guidance movement, for, surely, all who are genuinely interested 
in the full unfolding of the American system of popular educa- 
tion are hoping that the movement will prove to be, not a mere 
eddy in the stream, but a real quickening and broadening of the 
whole educational current. 



VOCATIONAL INFORMATION FOR 
PUPILS IN A SMALL CITY 

The course in vocational information in the Middletown, 
Connecticut, High School is divided as follows : the first is a 
careful consideration of the importance of vocational informa- 
tion, the characteristics of a good vocation, and how to study 
vocations ; the second and main part is a detailed treatment of 
some eighty or ninety professions, trades, and life-occupations 
grouped under agriculture, commercial occupations, railroading, 
civil service, manufacturing, machine and related trades, the en- 
gineering professions, the building trades, the learned profes- 
sions and allied occupations, and miscellaneous and new open- 
ings ; and the third and concluding part of the course is a prac- 
tical, thoroughgoing discussion of choosing one's life-work, 
securing a position, and efficient work and its reward. 

Unfortunately, although there are many excellent reference 
books, bulletins, etc., there seems to be as yet no one suitable 
book which the pupils can use as a basal text. Here may I be 
allowed to make a confession? Owing to the difficulties en- 
countered in assigning the lessons, for two years we suspended 
our work in vocational information, hoping to find a thoroughly 
satisfactory textbook, or perhaps to wait for the publication of 
such a one, but, while we know of a manuscript that we think 
would just fill the bill, we are through with waiting and are 
making the best use we can of the texts already at hand. 

We have found the following books fairly satisfactory as com- 
panion texts when supplemented by considerable collateral read- 
ing : Careers for the Coming Men, by Whitelaw Reid and others ; 
What Shall Our Boys Do for a Living? by Charles F. Wingate; 

^ By W. A. Wheatley, Superintendent of Schools, Middletown, Connecti- 
cut. School Review. 23:175-80. March, 1915. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 287 

and Starting in Life, by Nathaniel C. Fowler, Jr. Among the 
best reference works for the pupils the following are worthy of 
mention: the vocational booklets published by the Vocation 
Bureau of Boston and by the Students' Aid Committee of the 
High School Teachers' Association of New York City; many 
free bulletins issued by the federal and various state governments 
and by the International Correspondence Schools ; catalogues, 
bulletins, and pamphlets of colleges and of trade and professional 
schools; many trade journals; and a series of ten volumes on 
Vocations edited by William DeWitt Hyde. 

In studying each of the vocations we touch upon its healthful- 
ness, remuneration, value to society, and social standing, as well 
as upon the natural qualifications, general education, and special 
preparation necessary for success. Naturally, we investigate at 
first hand as many as possible of the vocations found in our city 
and vicinity. Each pupil is encouraged to bring from home first- 
hand and, as far as practicable, "inside" facts concerning his 
father's occupation. Local professional men, engineers, business 
men, manufacturers, mechanics, and agriculturists are invited 
to present informally and quite personally the salient features of 
their various vocations. And here, since these experts, not being 
teachers, would otherwise be likely to miss the mark completely 
and present phases of their work of little interest or value to the 
pupils, each speaker has explained to him carefully beforehand 
the purpose of the course in vocations and specifically just what 
is desired in his particular address. 

In order to make this presentation of our course in vocational 
information just as concrete and understandable as possible, I 
shall now outline for you two typical lesson plans in two rather 
separate departments of the vocational field; one is on the 
poultryman and the other on the mechanical engineer. Also, let 
me remind you that our work so far has been adapted to the 
boys only; a little later I shall speak of our recent beginnings for 
the girls. The lesson plans now follow. 

A Lesson Plan on the Poultryman 

Note. — This lesson may be completed in from one to three days, the 
treatment depending upon the particular locality and the needs and interests 
of the class. 

The setting of the lesson. — Before taking up the poultryman, the class 
has had a good introduction to general farming and has stressed the im- 
portance of agriculture, the nature of this Sort of work, present social ad- 



288 SELECTED ARTICLES 

vantages, remuneration in money and otherwise, qualifications and educa- 
tion desirable, and starting and succeeding in agriculture. The pupils have 
also completed, in specializing farming, the stockraiser and the dairyman and, 
as soon as they have finished this lesson outlined on the poultryman, they 
will study the market gardener, the fruit-grower, and, more briefly, other 
miscellaneous agricultural workers, such as the nurseryman, the seedsman, 
the beekeeper, the veterinary, etc. 

Lesson assignments preparatory to the recitation. — All members of the 
class have been assigned a lesson in their textbook on vocations, or, possibly, 
in several such books. The class, as individuals or in small groups, has been 
directed to several farmers' bulletins, issued by the United States and various 
state governments, to the agricultural yearbooks of the last three or four 
years, catalogues of agricultural colleges, and if possible to at least one book 
and one magazine of the following: Down-to-Date Poultry Knowledge, by 
F. W. DeLancey; Farm Poultry, by G. C. Watson; Principles and Practice 
of Poultry Culture, by J. H. Robinson; and the monthly periodicals, the 
Poultry Fancier and the Egg Reporter. 

Two or three members of the class, especially interested in this vocation, 
have been directed, as special assignments, to interview any local poultry- 
raisers or dealers in eggs and dressed poultry in order to report to the class 
such items of interest as the following: how many hens these men raise or 
sell in a year; how many dollars worth of business they transact; what 
breeds they find most satisfactory; whether eggs or dressed poultry pay bet- 
ter; whether most of the poultry products consumed in town are raised near 
by or at a distance; whether the poultry business locally is overdone or 
offers an attractive opening for young men; how much capital would be 
necessary to make a fair start, etc. 

From their books, bulletins, and periodicals the pupils get vocational 
facts of a more or less general character, while from the raisers and dealers 
interviewed they are able to get first-hand, concrete, localized information. 

The class exercise or recitation. — The pupils will learn that the eggs 
produced and the poultry found on the farms by the United States census 
enumerators in 1910 were worth as much as the ^heat crop, or about 
$620,000,000; that the great egg-producing section of our country is the Mis- 
sissippi Valley and that this product is not raised by expert poultrymen at all 
but by general farmers as an incidental or side production; that the scien- 
tific poultryman makes his profits by keeping better breds of hens, whether 
for egg-laying or meat purposes, in more efficient handling, or care, of 
fowls to secure greater returns, and in wiser methods of marketing his 
products. Of course, they also learn something of the nature of poultry- 
raising and what qualities and education are desired of the prospective poul- 
tryman, as well as how one might enter this work and how succeed in it. In 
this connection, they will investigate and discuss some of the many advan- 
tages to be gained from a course in an agricultural college. 

The class will discuss such topics as these: the advantages and dis- 
advantages of making poultry-raising a distinct business rather than a 
branch of general farming; a comparison of eggs and beef in nutritive 
value and digestibility; the likelihood of poultry products serving as an 
increasingly important substitute for beef, pork, and mutton; the advis- 
ability of selling eggs by the pound rather than by the dozen; how to 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 289 

produce eggs of the best quality and then how to get the best prices for 
them; how to test and grade eggs; how to discover the particular hens in 
one's flock that are the best layers; some of the best breeds for egg-pro- 
ducing, for meat, for general purposes; the necessary equipment for poul- 
try-raising, and its cost; the incubator; proper care of laying hens and of 
poultry for meat purposes; and which is better adapted to a particular 
locality — poultry-raising, fruit culture, dairying, or general farming. 

A Lesson Plan on the Mechanical Engineer 

The place and setting of the lesson. — The treatment of the mechanical 
engineer in the textbook will be found in the chapter devoted to the engi- 
neering professions. Before this particular lesson is taken up the class has 
already studied a general introduction to the whole field of engineering, 
touching upon the history, the general division into civil and military engi- 
ineering, and the inestimable services this group of men has rendered and 
continues to render mankind in relation to inventions, manufacturing, trans- 
portation, communication, conservation, sanitation, etc., instancing such tri- 
umphs as the telegraph, the modern printing press, an automobile factory, 
the Simplon Tunnel, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Panama Canal, reclamation of 
western land, etc. 

Next there was considered in brief outline a general scheme of the 
work performed by each of the following engineers: the civil engineer, 
the municipal and sanitary engineer, the mechanical engineer, the elec- 
trical engineer, the mining engineer, the metallurgical engineer, the indus- 
trial chemist, and the architectural engineer. After completing this general 
survey of the engineering field, the class treated in detailed fashion the 
callings of the civil engineer and of the municipal and sanitary engineer. 
The pupils are now ready to undertake this lesson on the mechanical en- 
gineer, which we are about to outline, and they will make a similar detailed 
study of the remaining five engineers, whose general scheme of work we 
have already surveyed, and thus they will complete the chapter on the 
engineering professions. 

Lesson assignments preparatory to the recitation. — So much for the 
setting of the lesson on the mechanical engineer. In preparation for the 
class exercise or recitation the whole class is asked to review the general 
scheme of the work of the mechanical engineer and to study the new sec- 
tion in their textbook or books dealing with the nature of this special branch 
of engineering; its advantages and disadvantages as a life-calling; the re- 
muneration at the start and in a man's prime; the opportunities for regular 
temployment and advancement; and the natural qualifications, the general 
education, and the special training required. 

The entire class, as individuals or in small groups, has been assigned 
special topics in such free bulletins as Graduates and Their Occupations, pub- 
lished by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Suggestions concerning 
the Choice of a Course in Engineering, issued by the Carnegie Institute of 
Technology; Announcement of the Co-operative Courses of the University of 
Cincinnati; Mechanical Engineering, by the International Correspondence 
Schools; in such catalogues as those of the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 
nology, Columbia School of Mines, Cornell University, etc. ; in such books as 
Goddard's Eminent Engineers, and McCullough's Engineering as a Vocation; 



290 SELECTED ARTICLES 

and, if possible, in at least two of the periodicals, Popular Mechanics, Scien- 
tific American, Engineering Magazine, and Engineerittg News. 

One or two of the pupils especially interested in this vocation should 
interview some near-by mechanical engineer in order to report to the class 
some such items of interest as the following: what work this engineer is 
engaged in at present; what he considers the greatest piece of mechanical 
engineering in the neighborhood; how he ranks his branch of engineering 
with the others; what natural or native qualifications he considers of great- 
est value to the prospective engineer; what subjects in high school he con- 
siders of most importance for his calling; would he advise the regular 
technological course or the co-operative school and shop course; does he 
consider mechanical engineering an especially attractive profession, etc. 

While studying this branch of engineering, or some other, it would be 
well to secure a practical, successful engineer to talk to the class informally 
about any phases of his profession or experiences he has had that would 
prove of especial interest and value to the study. 

The class exercise or recitation. — During the recitation the class might 
discuss such topics as: which of the three engineers so far studied in detail 
renders society the greatest service; which one is most necssary to your par- 
ticular community; which one's work seems perhaps the most attractive; what 
natural qualifications, what general education, and what special training 
are absolutely necessary for success in this profession; what subjects should 
constitute the best high-school course preparatory to this profession; what 
subjects the best technological schools demand for entrance; what are the 
advantages and the disadvantages of preparing for this profession in a co- 
operative school and shop course; what kind of work during summer vaca- 
tions would serve best in trying out a boy's aptitude for mechanical 
engineering; what is the difference between an expert machinist and a 
mechanical engineer; what is a contracting mechanical engineer, etc. 

We have just introduced a similar course for girls the second 
half of this year and are using as texts Lasalle and Wiley's 
Vocations for Girls, Weaver's Vocations for Girls, and Perkins' 
Vocations for the Trained IVonian, directly supplemented by the 
dozen or more pamphlets isued by the Appointment Bureau of 
the Women's Educational and Industrial Union of Boston, 
Massachusetts. 

When we consider that such a course in vocational informa- 
tion is practicable everywhere, that it is inexpensive, and that 
besides being intrinsically interesting to the pupils it actually 
gives them greater respect for all kinds of honorable work, helps 
them sooner or later to choose more wisely their life-work, con- 
vinces them of the absolute necessity for a thorough preparation 
before entering any vocation and holds to the end of the high- 
school course many who otherwise would drop out early in the 
race, should we then apologize when we urge upon educators 
and the tax-paying public that this branch of vital human knowl- 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 291 

edge be given a place in all our high schools, especially when it 
will require only as much time as commercial arithmetic or 
geography, or one-half as much as algebra, or one-sixth as much 
as German or French, or finally one-eighth as much as Latin? 

Let us not forget that there are already fifty American cities 
and towns giving their youth some form of systematic voca- 
tional guidance. These have done the hard pioneer work; why 
can we not increase the number to five hundred within a year 
or two and then make it general within five years? We can 
easily effect this, if every earnest educator will do his part in his 
own school system. 



VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE IN BOSTON^ 

There is much in our present industrial, social, and democratic 
environment which emphasizes this function of guidance in the 
schools. In our present social scheme, among other factors, it 
is the danger of the omission of the principle which has given 
the principle no little importance, for in our ills today we are 
impressed with the necessity of prevention of ailment rather than 
the curative treatment of it. Specifically illustrated, we no 
longer wait until a boy has been committed to a penal institution 
before he is taught a trade, but we teach him a trade, among 
other reasons, that he may avoid such commitment. 

Again, there is the influence of the application of scientific 
principles to human factors as well as to material processes. The 
choosing of a vocation by the "trial and error" method seems to 
be as unprofitable here as elsewhere. There is too much staked 
on one chance, and there are so few chances to try again. The 
chances are always against the boy, and success means luck 
rather than merit. 

Personally, I have often felt the need of emphazing the proper 
mental attitude on the part of the youth toward his prospective 
job. Grit and courage, I believe, have more to do with success- 
ful adjustment to the job than special aptitude. It must be re- 
membered that special aptitude toward any work is frequently 
accompanied by painfully evident special inaptitude. The atti- 

^ By Frank V. Thompson, Assistant Superintendent of Schools, Boston, 
Massachusetts. Vocational Guidance Association. Annual meeting, 19 14. In 
School Review. 23:105-12. February, 1915. 



292 SELECTED ARTICLES 

lude toward the job is ahvajs as important as aptitude for the 
job. Moral attitude has seemed to count more than fortunate 
mental and physical gifts. What vocational counseling would 
have advised the youthful Demosthenes to study oratory? 

Vocations are less plastic than the individuals who pursue 
them. Individually in the job was the mark of the handicraft 
stage ; automatic machiner}', measured time reactions, and stand- 
ard products make the job comparatively inflexible. The process 
of adaptation is in the worker, rather than in the work. Compe- 
tent vocational guidance must induct young workers into the real 
world as it is, with all its uncompromising facts. We must not 
allow our boys and girls to believe that there is any royal road 
to vocational success, any more than to learning. Some of our 
present school influences are at wide variance with the main 
tendencies in our industrial society. The unrestricted elective 
system in high schools emphasizes aptitude and individualitj' out 
of proportion to our industrial structure, wherein co-operation, 
social subordination, and standardized tasks are basic principles. 

The few scientific tests for vocational aptitudes that we now 
possess give us more of concern than of promise. The voca- 
tional counselor wishes to know what a boy can do, more than 
what he cannot do. Our psychological tests are aptly called 
eliminative tests. They are more negative than positive ; they 
eliminate but do not evaluate. The practical methods to be at 
once adopted by vocational counselors are those which are 
obvious rather than obscure. The school records of pupils, if 
properly kept and reasonably comprehensive, furnish enough 
presumptive evidence upon which effective guidance can be tenta- 
tively based. Joint conference with the youth and his parents will 
give the counselor enough additional information upon which to 
give competent advice, for wc must remember that guidance is a 
different function from placement. 

In Boston concrete and definite plans for organized work in 
vocational guidance are gradually taking shape. Faster progress 
is prevented chiefly by a lack of funds. Most of our work at 
present is on a voluntary basis and, while well intentioned and 
often effective, still lacks the force and achievement which is the 
result of expert and compensated service. Our present organi- 
zation for carrying on vocational guidance is as follows : Each 
elementary school has two teachers assigned to act as official 
vocational counselors ; one of the teachers deals with the pupils 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 293 

leaving to go to work, and the other advises pupils and parents 
regarding profitable choice of high-school courses. Each high 
school has one teacher and sometimes more assigned as coun- 
selors, but here counseling is limited chiefly to pupils leaving 
school to go to work. 

Several special schools, such as the Trade School for Girls 
and the Boston Industrial School for Boys, have provision in 
their organization for the appointment of special teachers known 
as vocational assistants, who have definite assignment of duties 
covering guidance, placement, and follow-up work. In the Trade 
Schools for Girls vocational assistants have been at work for 
several years past and what they have been able to achieve fur- 
nishes encouragement as to what may be expected as the result 
of the extension of the kind of service they are giving. Assign- 
ment of actual instruction is limited to one period and is for the 
sole purpose of bringing the vocational assistant and pupil to- 
gether for more intimate acquaintance. The chief duties of the 
vocational assistant may be summarized as follows : Visiting the 
homes of girls who are absent; visiting shops to learn of places; 
answering calls for employment and placing girls in shops ; fol- 
lowing up records of girls in shops, assisting in adjustments, 
and sometimes replacing girls. In addition, these vocational as- 
sistants are present at the school one evening a week for con- 
ference with working girls who are unable to appear during 
school hours, and lastly they keep all essential records of the 
girls, containing information relating to the school, the home, 
and the shop. Very recently the High School of Commerce has 
had incorporated into its organization a department head whose 
chief function is guidance, placement, and follow-up work. A 
special instructor is assigned to similar duties in the High 
School of Practical Arts. A general director for vocational 
guidance has only this year been appointed, but he is primarily 
an officer in the Continuation School organization, and, conse- 
quently, can devote the lesser part of his time to the specific 
problem of vocational guidance. 

Some description of the relation of vocational guidance to 
continuation schools may profitably be given at this point. When 
boys and girls under sixteen years of age leave school to go to 
work, they must secure the necessary working certificate. The 
process of securing the certificate involves an interview with the 
director of vocational guidance. From the school comes a some- 



294 SELECTED ARTICLES 

what detailed statement covering not only what is conventionally 
known as the school record,' but, in addition, a detailed account 



249 BOSTON PERSONAL RECORD OF PUPIL, 
PUBLIC CONTINUATION SCHOOLS 

(1914) SCHOOLS Perponal Record of 

First name Initial Last name 



School Home address District ... Suite or floor 

Sex Color Date of birth Birthplace Years in U.S.. 

Father's name Occupation Business address 

Mother's name Occupation Business address 

If either parent is not living so indicate by placing * before the parent's 
name 

Date of this record Date of leaving school 

Grade on leaving Teacher's name 

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS: 

Weight Height Neatness 

Special physical defects 

Remarks 

SCHOOL RECORD: 

Conduct Times present Times absent 

Cause of absence Times tardy 

Arithmetic English Geography Reading 

Histo y Grammar Music Spelling 

Drawing Manual training Sewing Cooking 

Penmanship Science Physical training Physiology 



HIGH SCHOOL SUBJECTS. Course 

English History Foreign language Mathematics 

Science Clerical Arts Domestic Arts 

Special talents 

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS: 

Reliable Industrious Obedient Cheerful 

Courteous Has pupil initiative ? Remarks 

Has pupil indicated any interest vifhich should assist in the selection of an o 

ccupation ? 

If so, what interest ? 

What occupation ? 

.^^ ( Teacher i think this interest should be encouraged? 

Do you as J -r ^. , „ , \ 

( Vocational Counselor I 

Parents' reference for child's work ? 

Previous work record 

Is the aid of the Placement Bureau desired ? 

Remarks 

This Record is to be forwarded to the Employment Certificate 

Office, 2i8 Trcmont Street, Boston, Mass. 

' See accompanying card. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 295 

of personal qualities, evident aptitudes or shortcomings, and 
home conditions. Personal conference enlightened by school 
information enables the director to give supplementary advice 
regarding the prospective job and to assign with some basis of 
presumptive evidence the proper course to pursue in the com- 
pulsory continuation school. Guidance and follow-up work are 
essential features of the Continuation School course, and the 
teachers of the school are given definite time in their progress 
to attend to these functions. 

The Placement Bureau of Boston comes indirectly into the 
problem of vocational guidance. This institution is not an 
official organization of the pubUc schools. It is conducted chiefly 
by private enterprise although receiving a small subvention in 
the way of rental from public school funds. The School Com- 
mittee of Boston has encouraged co-operation with this insti- 
tution on the part of the schools. Copies of the vocational infor- 
mation cards, mentioned above, are given to the Placement 
Bureau, which is often instrumental in finding suitable places 
for boys and girls leaving school. The Placement Bureau has 
rendered effective service in replacing boys and girls who have 
left positions for one reason or another. The Boston Chamber 
of Commerce has aided the Placement Bureau freely by urging 
employers to resort to the institution in looking for juvenile em- 
ployees. 

During the past few years the attempt has been made to 
acquaint our voluntary workers in vocational guidance with 
sorhe of the most important facts and conditions of industry 
and business. Our vocational counselors everywhere, except in 
certain special schools mentioned above, serve without additional 
compensation and also with no exemption from their regular 
duties. Consequently, no large demands upon their time can 
reasonably be expected. Business men, store superintendents, 
and trade experts have, from time to time, made addresses to 
gatherings of vocational counselors assembled from all over the 
city at central points. More benefit has resulted from contact 
with special private institutions like the Vocation Bureau and 
the Girls' Trade Education League. The bulletins and mono- 
graphs of those two organizations have been of value in furnish- 
ing the specific information about industry and business together 
with V. ages and working conditions prevailing therein, which the 
counselors need to know. We have been fortunate in Boston in 



296 SELECTED ARTICLES 

enjoying close association with the Vocational Bureau which has 
been a central point of organization and information upon voca- 
tional guidance for the whole country. We owe today our vision 
of the possibilities and appreciation of the need of vocational 
guidance to the Vocation Bureau. 

During the current year we are trying a different method 
from the lecture system in acquainting our counselors with the 
problems and duties of guidance. We are carrying on a series 
of locality conferences under the charge of the director at which 
discussions take place concerning the way to solve problems as 
they originate in the schools. The attempt is thus being made 
to organize the experience of the members of local groups who 
usually are confronted with conditions rendered more or less 
uniform by reason of similar prevailing social and economic 
circumstances. As stated before, the present problems of voca- 
tional guidance are more obvious than obscure, but organizing 
the obvious is not an involuntary, automatic process, but re- 
quires specific and careful attention and needs completion before 
more developed and complex procedure may be undertaken. 

The functions of vocational guidance should be more exten- 
sive than usually conceived at the present time ; in fact, vocational 
guidance, in its limited sense, cannot be fully effective imless 
supplemented by personal, moral, and social guidance. Unless 
the scope of guidance is broadened we may be in danger of 
having its function looked upon as a sort of sublimated fortune- 
telling or palm-reading. We feel the need in the schools, as 
never before, of knowing more of the home environment and 
limiting circumstances of the boys and girls in our schools. But 
the schools at present lack organization and the means of as- 
suming effectively larger burdens. Quite recently one large 
high school in Boston has accepted the assistance of the social 
workers of several settlement houses in investigating cases of 
school delinquency and irregularities. These school visitors 
have been asked to go into the home to confer with parents 
about failure in school work, about irregular attendance, and 
about marked infractions of school discipline. The results have 
proven of great service to the teachers of the school and to the 
parents of the children. The teachers, more often than not, have 
seen that they have misunderstood the causes of failure to 
respond to accepted classroom standards, that what was supposed 
to be a moral lack was in reality something very different and 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 297 

quite condonable when the real reasons had been secured. The 
parents, as well, have been led to see that the school is some- 
thing more than an unsympathetic institution making demands 
for conformity with regulations more legal than human. 

The vocational counselor, or perhaps we should say the 
school counselor, may properly conceive her duties as embracing 
quite prominently the functions indicated immediately preceding. 
She should know the child in the school, in the home, and in the 
workshop, and should be a source of guidance to the teacher in 
the classroom, to the parents in the home, and to the child in his 
several relations in the home, the school, and the workshop. 

It is quite natural that it should be assumed that there is a 
place in many schools, both elementary and secondary, in our 
large cities for one or more trained teachers possessing both 
sympathy and capacity for the problems of the counselor. The 
principle that vocational schools need this special service is 
already admitted in Boston and elsewhere. It will be illogical to 
deny that general schools need similar special service, for the 
motive today of our secondary schools is largely vocational. A 
large number of our boys and girls are unable to find places in 
our special vocational schools and resort to the general schools 
where they pursue special courses which promise to oifer some 
of the advantages of the special school. A current study into 
the state of commercial education in our Boston high schools 
reveals the fact that from 50 to 90 per cent of our pupils are 
enrolled in commercial courses. This means that there are 
in this single field thousands of bo3^s and girls in our own school 
system who need the special service of guidance, placement, and 
follow-up work. Our boys and girls are receiving this attention 
in part and as much as is reasonably possible under the limita- 
tions of the time and energy of the regular teachers, but the 
shortcomings of our present achievements simply emphasize the 
need of additional and more expert assistance if the sound, sen- 
sible, and long-cherished aim of our schools is to be belter 
realized in our day and generation. 

An able and influential monthly magazine contains in the cur- 
rent issue a bitter and brillant indictment of our American school 
system, comparing it disadvantageously to the systems of Swe- 
den and Norway, with their agricultural and technical folk 
schools. "We are content," our critic says, "to hang the alpha- 
bet and multiplication table around the child's neck and then 



298 SELECTED ARTICLES 

send the poor thing out to educate itself." 

The awakening of the people and the teachers of this coun- 
try to the need of vocational education, vocational guidance, 
varied and specific educational opportunities of a great variety 
constitutes the best answer to the above taunt. We have not as 
a nation failed to hold a noble aim for education, but many will 
agree that we need to proceed energetically toward the adoption 
and extension of more effective methods of attaining our aim. 



THE VOCATIONAL COUNSELOR' 

There needs to be a man who stands like the signalman in the 
tower by the side of the railroad track watching for the in- 
coming trains and setting the switch to turn each train to a clear 
track. The engineer on the moving engine may know much 
about his own train, but he cannot know which tracks are clear 
and which are blocked. The towerman knows not only the 
needs of the train, but sees the condition of the road ahead. So 
the vocational counsellor, with a broad outlook upon industrial 
conditions and a personal acquaintance with the needs and quali- 
fications of the individual, though he cannot determine the life 
course of the youth, may help him find a clear track upon which 
his life trip is likely to be happy. 

Let me emphasize what I believe to be most important. This 
task of vocational suggestion is so great, and may be of so 
much value, that it should be undertaken by a specially qualified 
person who may be able to devote his whole time and interests 
to the work. In small communities it may be possible for the 
superintendent of schools or some teacher to do some of the 
work which might be expected of a vocational director, but 
usually those people have enough with their present duties. A 
vocational bureau, either under private management or as a 
branch of the public school work might well be established in 
every city. Such bureaus are in operation in Boston, New York, 
Cincinnati and in other American cities, some of them under 
the direction of the school department; others conducted by the 
Young Men's Christian Association; others under wholly private 
management. 

1 From "Vocational Direction, or the Boy and His Job." By E. W. Lord. 
Annals of the American Academy. 35:sup. 73-85. March, 1910. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 299 

In our schools, there should be systematic and complete rec- 
ords of the personal characteristics and vocational bent of every 
pupil. Such a record which may be passed from teacher to 
teacher as the pupil advances in his course to be available when 
he is leaving school to go to work, might be of very great assist- 
ance to the conscientious teacher or a professional vocational 
director. 

The vocational bureau should not be considered as an em- 
ployment bureau, although it may sometimes serve that purpose ; 
fully as often, however, its function is to prevent the applicant 
from going immediately to work by pointing out to him the 
possibilities of greater profit to himself and of greater useful- 
ness to society which may come from entering some more ad- 
vanced line of work for which he needs further preparation. It 
should be remembered that a vocation is not simply a job, that 
it means much more than that it affords an opportunity to make 
a living. The great mass of our people succeed in one way or 
another in making a living, even tho they do work for which 
they are ill fitted, and in which their enthusiasm and interests 
are not enlisted. It may sometimes be necessary for a boy to 
take the first job that comes to hand, even though it be wholly 
distasteful to him, but in that case he ought to be encouraged in 
preparing himself for something which will be more in harmony 
with his abilities and purpose. The idea of thoughtful, personal 
choice, and of earnest, unchanging purpose should be cultivated 
in every young person. The boy who has wisely made up his 
mind regarding the career which he should follow, as he can do 
after having taken expert counsel and sympathetic guidance, is 
likely to find an opportunity to enter his chosen vocation and to 
remain in it successfully; while his companion, who is merely 
waiting for something to turn up, and is following a purposeless 
round of uncongenial labor, is pretty certain never to find the 
chance which he vainly hopes will come to him. 

I do not present the suggestion of vocational direction with 
the idea that it will prove a complete solution of the labor 
problem. I recognize many difficulties in the way. It is impos- 
sible for us to discern particular talent in case of manj^ young 
people, and it may be impossible for us to find the opportunity 
for all to develop talents which they may show. He who under- 
takes the responsible position of adviser for youth must remem- 
ber that he is working with human beings and cannot shunt 



30O SELECTED ARTICLES 

them upon this or that track with as little concern as the switch- 
man turns the freight train. The responsibility, even of advising, 
is great and must not be lightly undertaken ; yet I believe that 
we are right in undertaking it if by means of so advising and 
counseling the young we may be able to save some lives from 
wreck, and help many to better and more useful careers. 



THE VOCATIONAL SURVEY* 

The need of information concerning the vocations, particu- 
larly the occupations in the trades and industries, in order to 
plan systems of vocational training for the schools, has led to 
a number of surveys. The first of these was the study made by 
the Massachusetts Commission on Industrial Education in 1906, 
which was followed by similar investigations by state boards 
and commissions, notably that of the Wisconsin Commission on 
Industrial Education, and that of the Indiana Commission on 
Industrial and Agricultural Education. The purpose of these 
investigations was largely to find the need for vocational educa- 
tion in these lines and to consider the broad administrative pol- 
icies upon which through legislation the plan adopted should be 
based. 

Within the last two years large cities having the resources to 
meet the cost of thorough studies have carried on surveys under 
the direction of persons of experience, to gain the facts which 
would help them to get the kind of industrial or commercial or 
household-arts education, particularly the former, best adapted 
to their conditions and needs. Among these have been the stud- 
ies made by the Richmond Survey, the Cleveland Survey, and 
the Minneapolis Survey. The first and last of these were con- 
ducted by the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial 
Education as one of its means of serving the cause in a construc- 
tive way. The Society is now cooperating with the Indiana 
State Board of Education, and various local school boards in 
Indiana cities and counties, in the making of a survey for voca- 
tional education in various types of communities in that State; 
while the United States Bureau of Education is investigating the 

* From introduction by C. A. Prosser in H. Bradley Smith's "Estab- 
lishing Industrial Schools." Houghton Mifflin Co., 1916. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 301 

situation with regard to vocational education in connection with 
an educational survey it is conducting in the city of San Fran- 
cisco. 

These surveys are predicated on the idea that they are not 
only a good business proposition, but that the facts they gather 
and the expert opinion they offer are necessary to any intelligent 
dealing with the many difficult problems to be met in establish- 
ing vocational education of any kind in the community. 

No competent American business man would think of estab- 
lishing a manufacturing concern in a new place without making 
a survey — a careful study of all the important features of the 
location of the proposed enterprise. He would want to know, 
for example, the location of the site with reference to a source 
for raw material, competent labor, and desirable markets. He 
would look into the physical conditions of the site, its slope, 
drainage, and composition. The switching facilities for moving 
fuel, supplies, and finished product would be carefully investi- 
gated. Perhaps most important of all, his decision as to locating 
his business would depend largely upon the desirability of the 
community as a place to live and rear his family. 

So in the same way a survey for vocational education is a 
wise business proposition. The community is soon to be called 
upon to invest money in site, plant, equipment, salaries, and sup- 
plies for the purpose of changing raw material in the form of 
untrained youths into the finished product of young men and 
young women equipped with the knowledge and skill to become 
successful wage-earners in their chosen callings. In order that 
neither the money of the city nor the time of its young people 
may be wasted, the vital facts about its vocations and its voca- 
tional needs should be gathered and interpreted by competent 
people before the school is begun. If there is any field of edu- 
cation or of human service where the old adage, "Look before 
you leap," applies with more force than in the establishing of 
vocational schools, the writer does not know what it is. 

Every community, before entering upon a program of voca- 
tional education, should make a preliminary study of the con- 
ditions to which its plan must be adapted. It may be possible 
for communities to borrow or copy their school organization and 
their courses of study for general education from other places, 
although this usually results disastrously. One of the most 
pitiable spectacles in education to-day is the rural community 



302 SELECTED ARTICLES 

which has borrowed every feature of its work from that of a 
nearby city. Its manual training has no relation to country life. 
Its courses of study give no help to the worker in agriculture 
and lead away from rather than to the farm. All its work is 
aimed, not to prepare country boys and girls for rural life, but to 
prepare an occasional and lonely graduate to meet the entrance 
requirements of the state university. 

In vocational education a community cannot transport bodily 
any scheme from another place, however well it may seem to 
meet the needs of the latter. Industries differ in kind from one 
community to another. When of the same kind they differ in 
grade and therefore in their demands upon workers. They 
differ in such things as the entrance wage they offer, the 
health risk to be met, and the opportunities for better wage and 
promotion presented. They differ in the attitude of employers 
and their willingness to cooperate with the school by emplojdng 
its graduates on favorable terms or in employing boys on a part- 
school, part-shop plan. Likewise communities differ in the 
attitude of organized labor toward the school and toward recog- 
nition of the training given by the school as a part of the re- 
quired apprentice training. Communities vary from State to 
State in the age and the conditions under which a pupil may 
leave school to go to work. Even if communities could safely 
copy their scheme of vocational education bodily after that of 
another city, they would not get very far. Thus far industrial 
education for the youth has been established for a very few 
trades, such as machine shop, carpentry, cabinet-making, printing, 
electrical work, automobile repair and construction, bricklaying, 
plumbing, and gas-engine work, in the case of boj-s ; and dress- 
making, millinery, cooking, machine operating, and junior nurs- 
ing, in the case of girls. These fourteen lines are, after all, only 
"a drop in the bucket" when one considers that the last United 
States Census listed three hundred and eighty-six recognized oc- 
cupations in the industrial and mechanical industries alone. 

Not all occupations are worth training for, it is true. Nor 
can the school train successfully for all occupations, some of 
which must be learned "under the conditions of the trade." But 
it seems clear that thus far we have only crossed the threshold 
of our task of providing training for the vocations in industrial 
and mechanical lines. Vocations are to-day highly specialized, 
and any training for them, to be successful, must be correspond- 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 303 

ingly highly specialized. The search for common elements in all 
the vocations, which could be given to the youth as a preparation 
for each and all of them, has been from the outset as certain of 
failure under modern conditions as the search of Ponce De Leon 
for the magical fountain of youth. 

Without precedent to guide them, upon which they may com- 
pletely rely in meeting the difficult and complicated and highly 
specialized problem of providing vocational education for its 
citizenship, communities must base their programs of a local 
study of conditions and the suggestions and recommendations of 
those with most experience in dealing with vocational education. 

Not all communities can or will provide surveys carried on 
bj^ outside parties. In such cases the study if made must be con- 
ducted by the superintendent of schools or some other local per- 
son. Even if communities desired a survey by so-called "ex- 
perts," there are few persons at the present time with experience 
to equip them for the task. Communities are not accustomed 
to pay for such investigations out of their school budget. It may 
be that in some States such an expenditure from the school fund 
is not authorized by law. Too often local self-sufficiency opposes 
outside interference. In many quarters of every community 
there is an impatience if not contempt for expert service. While 
the money which a community would spend for a competent sur- 
vey before undertaking any plan of vocational education would 
probably be the wisest investment it could make, communities 
do not always have, or at least they do not think they have, the 
money for such an innovation. 

For all these reasons, and for others that need not be given 
here, we may expect to see the survey, conducted by persons of 
experience brought in from the outside, confined, in general, to 
larger cities where philanthropy or an awakened public sentiment 
has made the establishment of vocational education on an exten- 
sive scale possible and imminent, and where the call for an ex- 
pert study is insistent. 

Most of the surveys for vocational education, particularly 
outside the largest cities of the country, will be conducted by 
local agencies of which in many if not in most instances the 
superintendent of schools will be the leader. 



SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL 
FOR SECOND EDITION 

WAR WORK IN VOCATIONAL EDUCATION ' 

As the law provides they shall be, the activities of the Fed- 
eral Board for Vocational Education are largely cooperative. 
This board administers federal grants in aid of vocational edu- 
cation in the states, and it is at present largely engaged in 
providing emergency war training for conscripted men, and in 
organizing for undertaking national reeducation and return to 
civil employment of men disabled in the war. 

Federal grants become available each year, in amounts in- 
creasing from approximately $1,650,000 in 1917-18, to $7,160,000 
in 1925-26 and annually thereafter, and if accepted by the 
states the federal grants must be matched by equal amounts 
of state money. In the past ten months, since the board organ- 
ized, all of the states without exception have accepted grants, 
matching federal with state money to be expended for promot- 
ing vocational education in the public schools throughout the 
country. 

It is a rare event when our sovereign states elect unani- 
mously to take any single course even when their own best in- 
terests point the way clearly, and the event of the forty-eight 
states taking unanimous action involving expenditure of state 
money within a brief period of ten months vmder a permissive 
federal statute is unique in our history. It is in itself con- 
clusive proof that the federal law in this instance has been 
wisely conceived by Congress to insure widespread social bene- 
fits. 

The law which has been thus unanimously accepted by the 
states is a law for democratizing our public school education, by 
adapting it to the needs of those who must prepare to take up 
the commoner wage-earning pursuits in agriculture, industry, 

1 By C. A. Prosser, Director of the Federal Board of Vocational Ed- 
ucation. Annals of the American Academy. 79:263-70. September, 1918. 



3o6 SELECTED ARTICLES 

or commeroe. Under the law, also, vocational education is pro- 
vided in continuation part-time or evening courses for those 
who have already entered upon some wage-earning pursuit. 

In the past ten months the Federal Board has organized its 
staff of experts in various lines, and of regional agents for in- 
spection of schools federally aided; has formulated its policies 
of federal cooperation covering the entire field of vocational 
education in the states for agriculture, trades and industries, 
and home management ; has approved state plans setting up 
vocational courses in each of the 48 states, and allotted federal 
money available under these plans for the fiscal year 1917-18; 
and has maintained inspection of courses as they have been 
established in numerous local communties. Federally aided vo- 
cational courses have been set up in agriculture in 41 states, 
in trade and industrial subjects in 32 states, and in home eco- 
nomics in 29 states ; 22 states have organized courses in each 
of these three fields ; in 46 states teacher training courses have 
been organized. 

The record of the states in this work is impressive, especially 
when it is borne in mind that the record covers an initial period 
of only ten months. In Massachusetts, for example, vocational 
agriculture is being taught in 19 secondary schools with federal 
aid; trade and industrial subjects in 36 schools; and home eco- 
nomics in 29 schools. In New York the number of federally 
aided secondary schools is for agriculture 69, and for trades 
and industries 40 ; in Pennsylvania, for agriculture 38, for 
trades and industries 131, and for home economics 69; in Cali- 
fornia, for agriculture 12, for trades and industries 14, and 
for home economics 14; in Indiana, for agriculture Zl, and for 
trades and industries 21 ; in Mississippi, for agriculture 34, 
for trades and industries i, and for home economics 3. These 
states are taken at random merely as illustrations of the wide- 
spread development of secondary vocational education. The rec- 
ord for other states is equally impressive. 

As it happens, the cooperation of the Federal Board during 
the past ten months has extended far beyond the scope of ac- 
tivities contemplated in the organic law under which the board 
operates. The administrative machinery built up for under- 
taking the joint federal and state enterprise of promoting voca- 
tional education in the country as a whole has been com- 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 307 

mandeered for war service, — or rather, being immediately avail- 
able for such service, it has been freely tendered to the war 
ofifices and has been by them freely utilized. 

Ifnmediately upon its organization, the staff of the Federal 
Board, in compliance with the general policy approved by the 
board to render such assistance to the government as it might 
legitimately do in the emergency of war, began to take on war 
work. The training of conscripted men for army occupation.s 
was conceived to be the sort of vocational education which might 
most properly be promoted immediately. Under supervision of 
the Federal Board, war emergency training classes for con- 
scripted men have been organized in the public schools through- 
out the country. A series of war emergency ti^aining courses 
for army occupations has been prepared, and these courses have 
been adopted extensively not only for classes organized under 
the direct supervision of the board, but as well for classes or- 
ganized by the War Department among men enlisted in the 
army and for classes conducted on a commercial basis under 
private civilian control. 

The emergency war training bulletins of the Federal Board 
include emergency training courses in shipbuilding for ship- 
yard workers ; mechanical and technical training for conscripted 
men (Air Division, U. S. Signal Corps) ; training for motor 
truck drivers and chauffeurs ; for machine shop occupations, 
blacksmithing, sheet-metal working, and pipe-fitting; for elec- 
tricians, telephone repair men, linesmen, and cable splicers ; for 
gas engine, motor car, and motorcycle repair men; for oxy- 
acetylene welders; and for airplane mechanics, engine repair 
men, wood-workers, riggers, and sheet-metal workers. The prep- 
aration of these courses and the organization of training classes 
has been undertaken at the request of, and in cooperation with 
the Signal Corps and the Quartermaster Corps in the War De- 
partment, and the United States Shipping Board. 

Growing out of conferences between officials of the Federal 
Board for Vocational Education and officers of the General 
Staff, an arrangement was perfected late in October, with the 
approval of the Secretary of War, for the utilization of the edu- 
cational facilities of the United States by the Federal Board 
in cooperation with the W^ar Department for the purpose of 
training drafted men in various occupations prior to their re- 



3o8 SELECTED ARTICLES 

porting at the cantonments. An order signed by the Adjutant 
General of the War Department under date of November 3, 
1917, issued to the commanding generals of all departments and 
to the chiefs of bureaus, reads in part as follows : 

I. The Secretary of War directs that you be informed as follows: 
a. The Federal Board for Vocational Education, auifiorized by act of 
Congress, February 23, 19 17, of which Dr. C. A. Prosser is director, 
is now organized and is in close cooperation with the vocational schools of 
the country. This board is prepared to institute a comprehensive system 
of preliminary training of men of the second and subsequent drafts prior 
to their reporting at cantonments. . . . 

It is the desire of the Secretary of War that the chiefs of bureaus 
maintain close cooperation with this board, furnishing such information 
as to number of men desired to be trained, necessary courses, etc. For 
this purpose the chiefs of bureaus will deal directly with Dr. Prosser. 

This work has continued and the War Training Division 
of the Federal Board reports that on June 13, 1917, 12,000 men 
had been trained through the Federal Board and state author- 
ities for vocational education, and turned over to services — 
6,000 in mechanical lines, 5,000 in radio work for the army, 
navy and mercantile marine, and 1,000 in clerical occupations 
for Quartermaster Corps work. It estimates that an additional 
3,000 men have been trained by private agencies through im- 
petus given to the work by the Federal Board, using Federal 
Board courses of instruction. Incomplete reports from state 
vocational authorities for Maj-, return over 6,000 men in train- 
ing — 3,370 in radio classes, and 2,508 in mechanical classes, — 
and it is estitnated, on the basis of April returns, that the com- 
plete reports for May will show the number in training to 
be at least 7,500. On June 13, the May reports showed 165 
radio classes operated in 38 states, and 172 mechanical classes 
in 49 communities in 14 states. Almost daily reports of addi- 
tional classes being formed were coming in from California, 
Wisconsin, Missouri, New York and Pennsylvania. Since the 
May letters were sent out urging the establishment of new 
classes and the continuance of those in operation, renewed 
activity has been reported in at least 20 states. 

The Federal Board war emergency training bulletins have 
become standard courses in corps schools, such as the Quarter- 
master Corps at Camp Joseph E. Johnston, Jacksonville, Florida. 
Of these bulletins or course outlines some 25,000 copies have 
been furnished directly or indirectly to the War Department 
Committee on Education and Special Training for use in its 
classes, in which the number reported in training was 7,086 in 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 309 

April, 10,685 in May, and 26,666 in June. Contracts in force 
provided for the training of 100,000 men during the current year. 
This training under military control has been found necessary 
to provide for the needs of the army, in addition to the train- 
ing in voluntary classes under the Federal Board. 

Vocational Rehabilitation of Men Disabled in the War 

Even more absorbing in its appeal to the Federal Board, be- 
cause of the wide range given to vocational education as a means 
of insuring human welfare, has been the investigation of meth- 
ods and processes developed in the beUigerent countries for vo- 
cational rehabilitation of men disabled in the war. Coincidently 
with its organization the board initiated its inquiries in this 
field, and it has passed those inquiries continuously during the 
past ten months. No other agency of the government was pre- 
pared to enter this field, and the government naturally turned 
to the Federal Board for expert service. 

The enactment recently by Congress, without a dissenting 
vote in either house, of the Smith-Sears Act, entrusting to the 
Federal Board the vitally important work of reeducation and 
returning to civil employment men disabled in the war, is a 
recognition of the services of the board during the past ten 
months in accumulating data relating to rehabilitation work and 
in devising a scheme of organization for undertaking this work 
as our men return disabled from service. Here, also, it is pro- 
vided that there shall be full and complete cooperation. The 
several government offices concerned with the future welfare of 
men discharged from the army and navj^ including the medical 
and surgical services of the War Department and the Navy 
Department, the Bureau of War Risk Insurance in the Treas- 
ury, and the labor exchanges in the Department of Labor, to- 
gether with the Federal Board, will each render service in re- 
taining and returning to civil employment men disabled in the 
war. The Federal Board will act in an advisory capacity in 
providing vocational training for men during their convales- 
cence in the military hospitals before their discharge from the 
army or navy, and will continue such training to finality after 
discharge, as the civilian agency of rehabilitation and place- 
ment in industry. 

The time of the members of the board and of the director 



310 SELECTED ARTICLES 

and his staff has been largely occupied in conferences with repre- 
sentatives of other federal offices, state organizations, casualty 
insurance companies, chambers of commerce, the Red Cross, 
and other associations interested in the restraining of men dis- 
abled in the war. Out of these conferences the original draft 
of the Smith-Sears law was formulated. A joint committee of 
the Senate and House of Representatives conducted public hear- 
ings upon the bill, which as finally improved passed both Houses 
of, Congress unanimously. This bill imposes upon the Federal 
Board new responsibilities which in the immediate future, at 
least, will be of equal importance with those imposed by the 
organic act creating the board. The publications of the board 
in this field embrace several bulletins, one of over 300 pages. 
In preparation for the assumption of the new responsibilities, 
the director, a member of the board, and representatives of the 
staff have visited Canadian institutions for restraining disabled 
men. The secretary of the Canadian Invalided Soldiers' Com- 
mission, Mr. T. B. Kidner, who has developed this work in 
Canada, appeared before the joint committee in support of the 
proposed legislation, and he has temporarily undertaken to 
assist the board in the organization of the work in this coun- 
try under the Smith-Sears Act. 

Opening a Larger Field of Usefulness 

A still larger field of usefulness is opened up to the Federal 
Board and for vocational education in general, since it is in 
mind that the experience gained in the work of reeducating 
men disabled in the war, and the administrative machinery and 
expert service developed for this work shall all be utilized after 
the war for rehabilitating the victims of industry, as well as 
the thousands of natural cripples who in the past have been 
abandoned to hopeless indigence. 

The Federal Board has thus undertaken to promote voca- 
tional education in the states, and so to promote the develop- 
ment of such education in the present emergency as to provide 
for the special needs of the war and of men disabled in the 
war. In each of these fields it has appeared as an adminis- 
trative agency of coordination and cooperation, and it has con- 
ceived a vision of usefulness in the future which it believes 
to be in a fair way of realization. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 311 

These are the large aspects of the Federal Board's operation 
and policies during the brief period that comprehends its own 
organization, its entrance into entirely new fields of vocational 
education, its extension of service into each of the 48 states, 
and its preparation for the assumption of new responsibilities 
in rehabilitating the disabled and crippled. 

A survey of the past ten months warrants the conclusion 
that the program of vocational education is in a fair way of 
being realized even beyond the most sanguine hopes of those 
who have in the past participated in formulating that program. 
Education in the public schools is rapidly being democratized 
and adapted to the needs of our citizenship. In realizing this 
program the states have responded splendidly. State education 
authorities also responded splendidly to the appeal of the fed- 
eral government, through the Federal Board, to demonstrate 
the practical utility of vocational education in the exacting 
emergency of war. The institutions providing vocational train- 
ing for conscripted men have stood the acid test of devising 
schemes of training to meet the special requirements of waging 
war. This demonstration of social service in a great emer- 
gency will stand to the credit of vocational education after the 
war is won as fulfilling the highest ideals of its advocates, and 
it may confidently be anticipated that the achievements in the 
future, when the community returns to its peaceful pursuits, 
will even exceed those rendered in war time. 

NEW WINE IN NEW BOTTLES ' 

Such considerations suggest to me some working principles 
of organization and method, not all of which will receive unan- 
imous assent. 

I. No high school student looking forward to the university 
should ever be encouraged to believe that our new subjects 
are not for him. In fact, unless he could show that his home 
life, as was the case pretty generally during pioneering days, 
was giving him a substantial equivalent, I should prescribe one 
or another for him, as a human being, as a future sure-footed 

1 From article by Alexis F. Lange, Dean of School of Education, Uni- 
versity of California. Manual Training. 19:9-12. September, 1917- 



312 SELECTED ARTICLES 

and sure-handed thinker, and as an intelligent, systematic, co- 
operative citizen in a democratic commonwealth, and should 
thus assist him on the way toward thorobredness thru action for 
action. 

2. No high school student whose formal schooling ends 
with high school graduation or before should have his chances 
to make a life as well as a living curtailed. We commit a 
crime against him if we regard him as merely an economic de- 
vice, a means to a livelihood, as a tool for Capital to use and 
to exploit, and then organize a course of study and training 
which prevents him from winning possession, as far as he is 
able, of his rightful heritage, i. e. knowledge of man and nature, 
art, and thought-out ideals of individual and social conduct. 
Then, too, unmitigated and too early specialization results in 
employes not in masters, in dependents, not in free men. More- 
over, while national progress depends on specialized skill, it 
depends even more on a people's general social efficiency, i. e. 
on the height of the plane on which the greatest possible num- 
ber of citizens are able to meet in thinking, feeling, and hence 
willing. Specialization alone is the right thing for a despotism 
that wants to maintain itself. 

3. In organizing these new subjects for purposes of in- 
struction two pitfalls are to be avoided. One of them is that 
of trying to teach subjects instead of teaching boys and girls. 
Would so many students feel that the traditional subjects are 
not worth while if their teachers did not isolate these subjects 
from every human interest present or to come, except that of 
the professional specialist? If these teachers kept their eyes 
on their pupils and on the far goal of all education, would not 
the physics teacher recall that physics developed out of the use 
of tools and mechanical appliances, and the chemistry teacher 
that chemistry had its origin in the processes of dyeing and 
bleaching, and the mathematics teacher that geometry means 
earth-measuring? Might it not happen then that each would 
utilize the pupil's daily life and that of his community, and by 
problems of knowing and doing make him realize that the 
physical world is intelligible, and that man by setting thought 
to work has compelled Nature to serve him? Something anal- 
ogous to this holds for every other of the traditional subjects, 
even for Latin. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 313 

Teaching boys and girls by means of subjects rather than 
subjects by means of boys and girls will prevent us from drop- 
ping into the other pitfall — that of making manual dexterity 
the Alpha and Omega instead of regarding it as a necessary re- 
sult or by-product. In the long run, the most practical things 
are always those powers and qualities that may separate human 
beings from trick-dogs, such as the ability to get at underlying 
principles and then to apply them; judgment, imagination de- 
veloped thru the possibilities of actual situations, courage to 
say no to one's self, forms of behavior that facilitate social 
intercourse, etc. Such powers and qualities are truly practical 
both in making a life and in making a living. We must see, 
further, I think, that each of the numerous vocations for which 
the new subjects may serve as foundations, means so much more 
than technique. Each means a mode of life. Farming, for ex- 
ample, does not mean raising crops or cattle. According to 
who and what the farmer is, it means a good or bad or an in- 
different business. It may mean a home, sanitary, comfortable, 
and beautiful ; or it may mean a pig-sty. It may mean no re- 
sources of thought beyond the daily labor ; it may mean a stead- 
ily increasing participation in the best that is being thought 
and said and done in the world. And so we are obviously not 
giving our pupils a square deal if we dissociate technical proc- 
esses and activities from the life implied, and the life implied 
from its connection with the inclusive life of the state and the 
nation. Moreover, while pupils are learning to apply intelligence, 
under expert guidance, to the arts, until recently acquired thru 
imitation or a rule-of-thumb apprenticeship, should they not 
learn also to apply intelligence to traditional or existing economic 
and social settings for these arts, in order that they may take 
with them into their vocations better ways of doing better things 
in the management of life as a whole? One of the special func- 
tions of those interested in vocational guidance might very legiti- 
mately and desirably be that of furnishing information con- 
cerning vocations as modes of life both as to what they now 
are and what they may be made. 

Our new wine, as intimated, in order to develop its full 
potency and characteristic flavor, requires appropriate new bot- 
tles. Here is a challenge and a great opportunity, be the dif- 
ficulties encountered ever so great. The nature and setting of 



314 SELECTED ARTICLES 

the new subjects and their appeal to youth are such that we can 
do more than any one else toward making school life a con- 
tinuation or expression of adult community life at its best, and 
the starting point, directly and indirectly for its improvement. 
We are especially called upon to forge new links between the 
school and the home, the farm, the workshop, and the best 
community institutions for social intercourse and recreation. By 
and by we can perhaps — the hardest task of all — put the fear 
of the Lord, if not life, into the academic teacher, so-called, 
and assist thus in making every high school subject and the 
whole high school community life promote for every pupil the 
making of a life. The school must form a whole with the 
rest of life. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION IN THE LIGHT OF 
THE WORLD WAR' 

The social idealism of the young people of our country has 
not been genuinely touched and called upon in times of peace, 
and we have, I think, to admit that one of the features of the 
war system has been that hundreds of thousands of young 
men have been brought to view their training and their capacity 
in the light of social needs and demands, in a way in which 
their college and technical education before that was not calling 
them out. At present our young people simply do not know 
how to see clearly the opportunities and the channels, so that 
their native social idealism gradually flickers and sinks for 
lack of a field for exercise, or is diverted into fields of business 
ambition where their energies get an outlet or, still worse, be-- 
come dissipated in the trivial channels of society pursuits. The 
younger citizens of our country who have not learned the full 
meaning of a release from the smaller things, that release 
which comes from a chance to take part in directing larger 
social activities, will respond with eagerness to any further 
appeal and all the more so because it is in line with the tradi- 
tions and occupations of our reconstructed social relation. It 
would be, it seems to me, hardly short of a crime if we permit 

^ From article by John Dewey, Professor of Philosophy, Columbia 
University. Vocational Education Association of the Middle West. Bui. 4. 
January, 19 18. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 315 

this newly stirred idealism of our youth to dissipate itself, after 
the war, in the colleges and beaten channels. 

My other suggestion is of the same nature, but applies not 
so much to the younger or human beings as to the branches 
of learning and science which have gone into the conscious 
service of the nation. We all know how large the organization 
is — we all know how large are the organized resources of the 
sciences of physiology, hygiene, medicine, political economy, 
psychology, how these sciences have been organized and mob- 
ilized on a large scale for national use. Now, through this 
fact, hundreds and thousands of scientific and technical men 
have learned in an intense way, and a direct way, in which 
they have not learned before, the lesson of social importance 
of their particular branch of knowledge and skill. There are 
for example, over two hundred youths of our country, who have 
been trained in our schools in the science of psychology who 
are immediately going to have their activities put to actual 
national use. That is one illustration with which I happen to 
be personally familiar, but it merely indicates what is going on 
in all lines on account of the war throughout this country. 
They have been given a chance to translate specialized knowl- 
edge into some direct public and national service. I don't think 
if many of the men have a chance to use their specialized learn- 
ing, their scientific knowledge or their artistic skill after the 
war in some constructive form of national service, they will be 
compelled to withdraw into their former aloof seclusion and 
continue to carry on their work in the remote over-specialized, 
over-technical way in which most of us were carrying it on be- 
fore. There is the opportunity, one might say, of the censor 
to gather the resources of men of science, of art in various 
lines, and concentrate them upon the plan of first working out 
this scheme and then putting it into actual execution. Surely 
the needs of health and happiness, of efficiency, of artistic crea- 
tion, of the enjoyment of leisure in times of peace, cannot be 
less important than securing and calling out the mobilization 
of these resources, under the necessities of the war situation. 
There is one answer, not exactly a reply, but a rejoinder to 
some such project as I have endeavored here to paint in its 
large outline, and that is the old answer : It is impracticable, 
for it has never been done. With respect to its practicability, 



3i6 SELECTED ARTICLES 

I should like to ask one question : Is it practicable to continue 
our present scheme of social disorder and confusion and con- 
flict? Is that practicable, and again is it practicable to expect 
a more ordered and a more harmonious and peaceful type of 
social life in the future except upon the foundation and sub- 
structure of an educational system which has been framed on 
a large scale for this principal purpose? The nations of the 
world have found the capital and resources, the money by the 
billion, for the maintenance of the social values and standards 
of these countries when they were threatened with disintegra- 
tion by an enemy from without. It is not absurd that the re- 
sources and the money may not be made available nationally 
for a positive and constructive development, and ordering all 
the social values in time of peace? 

The nations which have been called upon to make the sacri- 
fices of billions of dollars and of human lives will not, I think, 
long remain content without demanding the expenditure of 
public funds on a large scale for making a more secure and a 
more satisfactory basis of national life. What is needed is the 
will, the imagination and the trained intelligence to plan that, 
to execute the plan. And with whatever mistakes or blunders 
and defects there have been in our preparation in the last four 
months, I think it has been demonstrated that it is possible 
to organize and mobilize the intellectual and moral resources 
of the nation in a period of national stress. Certainly we 
Americans have prided ourselves upon being an inventive peo- 
ple, an adaptable people, a people that easily and readily meets 
new emergencies and new inventions. Are we going to fall 
down when it comes to the final test of invention, the inven- 
tion of social methods and of social machinery? Now is the 
time to begin to consider this question and now is the time to 
begin the planning of the campaign for our after-war educa- 
tional activities. Now is the time indeed in which to make out 
our detailed plans and specifications for this large educational 
organization. If the educators will take upon themselves the 
primary responsibility for settling down to consummation and 
elaboration of the scheme, I am sure that they will find among 
the men in sciences and the men in art, painting, music, and 
so on, among statesmen of the country and among the larger- 
visioned captains of industry, a kind of cooperative assistance 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 317 

which will enable a plan to be worked out so that when the 
days of demobilization and facing the post-war problems come, 
we shall not be caught inert, unprepared, going on with a policy 
of patching up and of muddling through till some other social 
catastrophe, if possible even greater than the present one, shall 
overwhelm us. 



THE EDUCATIONAL AWAKENING 

The idea that training to work is a very essential part of 
public school education has had a hard struggle to get itself 
a hearing. "We must not commercialize the schools," say some. 
"My children will never have to work," say others whose off- 
spring will probably squander their patrimony and have to work 
or steal. And schoolmen have discovered that brain work and 
vocational work travel faster when they go hand in hand. 
Moreover, the young people who must earn their living can 
be kept at their books longer when at the same time they are 
preparing for their future occupations; and the sons of the 
wealthy will have a saner conception of what it means to be 
a gentleman and will often be preserved in the ranks of honest 
men if they know how to earn an honest dollar. 

The first duty of every one is to earn his own living ; and 
he who can not or will not do this is a parasite upon society. 
We shall some daj' agree that no pupil, male or female, rich 
or poor, shall be graduated until he has earned a little money. 
And this, in the interest of democracy, self-respect, and eco- 
nomic independence. Those who did not already know it have 
learned through this war that Germany is the best organized 
and most efficient of European nations ; which is because each 
separate individual in it is thoroughly trained for usefulness. 

When the Kosminski school in Chicago was opened, people 
told each other with some surprise, that cooking and sewing 
were to be taught in that building. Now the school in which 
these subjects are not taught is the exception. Domestic arts, 
manual training, evening schools, technical schools,, part-time 
schools, and trade schools, have come into our educational sys- 
tem and have come to stay. Our universities now include in 

By Clara Kern Bayliss. Education. 38:380-4. January, igi8. 



3i8 SELECTED ARTICLES 

their curriculi such subjects as ceramics, agricuUure, library 
science, civil and electrical engineering, and domestic science; 
and to men and women engaged in business they give short 
courses in banking, marketing and credits, business law, invest- 
ments, accounting, and salesmanship. 

The Gary schools are open every day in the week to old and 
young, from 7 a. m. till 9 or 10 p. m., and instruction is given 
in almost every conceivable line, from children's play to the 
serious activities of adults. At the Tuskegee Institute the stu- 
dents study and work on alternate days. At the Cincinnati Tech- 
nical College they get theory and practice on alternate weeks, 
one-half of them going each week into the shops, factories, and 
business houses of the city for practical experience. 

So general is the educational awakening that business firms 
are voluntarily establishing schools for their employees ; like the 
white goods factory in New York which has a school and con- 
ducts graduations within its walls to improve the efficiency of 
its workers; or like the telephone company of Chicago which, 
in a still more philanthropic spirit, has established a school for 
its employees so that when they become too old for their pres- 
ent work and its compensation, they may not be too ignorant 
for other employment. 

Perhaps nowhere else in the United States is the remark- 
able change in educational ideals so fully revealed as in the 
Gary schools and in the varied enterprises of the Los Angeles 
schools. In the latter the vocational inclinations of the children 
are observed from the lowest grade by means of what is termed 
"play vocations." Each little one is allowed to choose a callng 
and cut out pictures from catalogs and advertising matter to 
make an automobile scrap book, a rancher one, a dressmaker, 
an engineer, or a geographical one. All through the grades the 
tendency of each one is noted so that he may be given advice 
as to the calling for which to fit himself. 

In the grades they make baskets, trays, stools, cane chairs, 
and other reed furniture ; repair books, make iceboxes, tables, 
tool chests, work benches, fireless cookers, ironing boards ; make 
and set cement posts ; lay sidewalk ; and cobble shoes. More 
than five hundred pupils remain after school in the sloyd rooms, 
and hundreds of outsiders come in the evening for this work. 
One of the sloyd teachers visits the homes of the pupils and 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 319 

directs their attention to repairs they should make in the houses 
in which they live. 

They have a school orchestra of one thousand members, and 
three teachers who give full time to it. They have doctors, 
clinics, a day nursery, school for mutes, school for defectives, 
vacation schools, evening schools, kindergarten schools, special 
drawing school, art school ; schools for agriculture, commerce, 
domestic science, marine vocations, technical vocations. They 
teach management of "wireless" apparatus, mail service, depart- 
mental work at Washington, illustrating and advertising, dra- 
matic art ; home, maternity, and emergency nursing. 

In large cities schools are seeing the need of helping pupils 
to get started in business. New York and Chicago teachers are 
suggesting that school boards have a vocational bureau to aid 
graduates and pupils who must help out the family earnings, 
in finding employment. The Los Angeles schools have a chart 
showing the pupils the chances for positions and the wages paid 
for different degrees of preparedness in each of the following 
occupations : Commercial art, hand wrought metal work, in- 
terior decorating, leather work, pottery work; general farmer, 
specialty farmer, truck gardener, landscape gardener, nursery- 
man, dairy farmer, poultryman, farm mechanic ; multigraph oper- 
ator, adding machine operator, filing clerk, billing clerk, ofifice 
assistant, office manager, accountant, auditor, bank clerk, book- 
keeper, cashier, stenographer, reporter, private secretary, ship- 
ping clerk, receiving clerk, business manager, postofifice em- 
ployee, civil service employee, commercial teacher; caterer's as- 
sistant, teacher, housekeeper, waitress, dressmaker, milliner, 
seamstress ; boat builder, engineer, merchant marine, naval archi- 
tect; aquarium attendant, cataloguer, chart designer, curator of 
museums; fish commissioner, fish expert, fish propagator; as- 
sa^'er, blacksmith, cabinet maker, chemist, draftsman, foundry- 
man ; electrical station, sub-station, telephone work, electric light 
work, electrician, machine shop work, pattern making, and sur- 
veying. 

Beside all this, the children go to museums to study the 
different parts of animals ; to the mountains to spend a day with 
the oaks and pines ; to fossil beds to watch the excavation of 
extinct animals ; and to ■ the seashore to study marine animals 
and algae. 



320 SELECTED ARTICLES 

We have "flowed" a long waj^ since the time when elementary 
education meant the three Rs, and higher education meant the 
classics. Book-repairing, cobbling, and boat building taught in 
the public schools ! Pupils going off — 3,000 in a company — to 
spend a day at the seashore ! Ye gods ! How the old time 
sticklers for strictly a literary education must be sitting up in 
their graves and rubbing their startled eyes at these innovations! 



OPPORTUNITY SCHOOL AT DENVER' 

The Opportunity School at Denver is said to be an insti- 
tution unique in the United States, and is especially interesting 
as it throws overboard all the formal systems which go to make 
up educational practice even in a country like the United States, 
bold as it is in educational experiments. 

Briefly, this school supplies an educational refuge for all 
those sorts and conditions of men, women and children who 
are not catered for by any other institution. It disregards, in 
admitting students, age, qualifications and even set hours of 
the day. Boys in offices, young women in service, blind men, 
cowboys, foreigners, indeed all who can snatch brief periods 
of time from their ordinary work come here to improve their 
conditions in life. The writer paid two visits to this school, 
and noticed the stream of men, women, and children pouring 
into its doors at all hours of the day. Only started in Sep- 
tember, 1916, but presided over by a woman of genius, who had 
already shown her worth in other educational fields, the school 
has attracted an astonishing number of between three and four 
thousand students since its inception. The city authorities, who, 
unhappily for Denver, are said to have checked local educa- 
tional progress in other quarters through political bias, seem 
to have agreed in recognizing the wonderful success of this 
unique institute by supporting it with municipal funds raised by 
taxation. 

The Opportunity School certainly opens the eyes even of 
the formal educationist, who is accustomed to look on educa- 
tion as a thing confined to youth. It emphasizes the immense 
gap between the formal education of the past (both in Eng- 

1 From "America at School and at Work." p. 97-101. By Herbert 
Branston Gray. Nisbet & Co., London. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 321 

land and in those parts of the United States which have in- 
herited EngHsh traditions), and the practical training for life- 
work, which modern vocational instruction attempts to bridge 
by the introduction of manual training schools, trade schools, 
corporation schools and the like. 

But the Opportunity School at Denver has effected an even 
more surprising revolution. It has visualized the limited out- 
look of all previous systems as regards age, educational quali- 
fications, and set hours, and has boldly undertaken to fill the 
gap. Formal systems, on whatever basis they are founded, do 
not profess to be responsible for the adult citizen, or for the 
waifs and strays of life. The Opportunity School on the other 
hand recognizes no limit in its educational sympathies. It sets 
out to repair all educational deficiencies, which parental neglect, 
lack of opportunity, the failure to seize previous opportunities, 
have left in the life of the citizen, however young, or however 
old. It helps and cures the educationally lame, blind, halt and 
maimed. Thus it goes further than foundations like the Pratt 
Institute, where the principal aim is to render more skillful 
and efficient the workman or woman already engaged in settled 
occupations. 

But this school not only supplies instruction of all sorts for 
all sorts of people; it also undertakes, and with conspicuous suc- 
cess, to find employment for its transient citizens. It is in 
fact a placement bureau, and is sought after by employers of 
all kinds. 

Concrete cases will best serve to illustrate this new de- 
parture in the sphere of educational experiment — cases which 
actually came under the notice of the writer. It will be seen 
that they embrace a remarkably wide range. 

I. A cowboy aged twenty-seven began to attend this school. 
He had only reached the fifth grade in his elementary school 
as a boy. He is now taking sixth, seventh and eighth grades, 
correlating algebra, geometry, English, history, science. He 
asks his teacher to take walks with him when not in class, 
and talk to him about subjects he ought to know. 

2. A boy aged sixteen, employed in a small grocery store 
at $3.50 a week, has increased his earning capacity to $12.50 
after attending two hours a day for a month, and taking ai'ith- 
metic, English, and mechanical drawing. 



322 SELECTED ARTICLES 

3. An Austrian girl, knowing nothing but her native tongue, 
has taken English, and has now secured a place as nurse in 
the county hospital. The sewing department of the school de- 
voted several days to making her outfit. 

4. Two blind men have attended the school for some months, 
one learning salesmanship, the other typewriting and the dic- 
taphone. 

5. There is a class for defective speech — students in this 
class have been in inferior positions on account of this defect, 
and have rapidly secured better situations. 

6. A large number of men and women attend evening 
classes in one or more special subjects in order to be more 
efficient the next day. 

7. Many entirely uneducated older people obtained the rudi- 
ments of an education in the school bit by bit. 

8. The citizenship class composed of aliens numbers four 
hundred and fifty pupils of all ages, and its members are trained 
to become real American citizens. 

Free evening meals are provided for boys who work all 
day for small wages and live a long distance from the school 
which they attend in the evening. This help enables them to 
come directly from work to the school without losing time. 

There is a close correlation, as will be seen, of school work 
with everyday life. Students "function" their school knowl- 
edge through its school store — its automobile shop, its adding 
machine, its typewriters, its cash registers — and in the school. 
For example, in the school store the pupil dictates to the stenog- 
rapher who comes from .the commercial department. These 
letters are criticised in the boys English class. Again the auto- 
mobile school prepares the student on certain days for prac- 
tical work in his automobile shop where he is working, by giv- 
ing him an engineering and mathematical course. 

The following classes have been organized and others are 
being formed when demanded: cooking, sewing, millinery, hair- 
dressing, automobile repairing, electricity, bookkeeping, type- 
writing, shorthand, salesmanship, dentistry, mechanical draw- 
ing, woodwork, shop arithmetic, etc. 

There are of course no school fees. The school is built on 
the principle, "If you don't see what you want, ask for it." 
It is re-educational in the best sense of the word, and if the 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 323 

old or the young has missed hfe's previous opportunities it 
gives him the chance of a new start. 



THEORETICAL GARY ^ 

Gary frankly accepts the machine as the basis of modern 
life, and it is with the child from his earliest years. Bourne 
describes a physics class of twelve twelve-year-old girls and 
their nine-year-old helpers, studying the motor-cycle. The in- 
structor began with a spelling lesson on the parts and processes, 
then explained the mechanism and physical principles involved, 
finally starting the motor-cycle, while the girls described its 
action. "The intense animation of that little group was all the 
more piquant for having as a background the astounded dis- 
approbation of three grave school superintendents from the 
East." Taylor saw a class working on ventilation data ; the 
upper grades, also, are able to enter a house and plan a com- 
plete heating system. The physics laboratories are elaborately 
equipped, with three large rooms in Emerson, plus the light- 
ing and power plant. 

Chemistry is related to industry, the home, the school lunch 
room. Graduates of the laboratory are able at once to earn $80 
a month in the research laboratories of the Steel Corporation. 
Coons cites the erection of a crucible by the boys to reduce a 
sample of bog iron brought in by a curious boy, as a starting 
point for the steel and iron industries of Gary. Taylor in- 
stances a class on the basis of whose analysis of coal for the 
schools, payment was made. The Emerson Laboratory is sim- 
ply an extension of the municipal chemist's laboratory. Older 
children act as his assistants testing city water and milk sup- 
plies ; his children are practically deputy food inspectors, visiting 
dairies, bakeries and food-shops. Bourne found another class 
experimenting with soft drinks, studying questions of solution, 
suspension and crystallization. The bacteriology laboratory is 
equipped for testing food products and contagious diseases ; 
while the school physician has his own laboratory, and students 
are assigned to work with him. Through auditorium, chem- 
istry and physiology, he explains the laws of health. When a 
classmate is sick, the children see that quarantine is enforced. 

1 From article by William L. Dealey. Pedagogical Seminary. 23:269- 
82. June, 1916. 



324 SELECTED ARTICLES 

In the arts, Taylor describes a studio for orchestra, piano, 
correlated vocal work, and special library. Instrumental music 
is part of the curricula for six per cent., forming nine school 
orchestras, inclusive of evening schools. The art work in- 
cludes jewelry design, pottery design, drawing applied to the 
shops and laboratories ; in one studio, children were decorating 
the walls. 

Probably the most successful solution of the practical arts 
course is the Gary vocational guidance plan. This extension of 
the manual training system to Burris is the "best yet devised." 
Gary places practical instruction, Snedden adds, on a much more 
satisfactory basis "than anything heretofore existing outside of 
individual schools." Every bit of practical work for the en- 
tire school plant is made an educational opportunity, providing 
prevocational industrial and commercial experiences at small 
cost. The school thereby organizes itself as a community of 
children varied in its work. 

The basis is laid in the elementary school. The first three 
grades devote an hour daily to simple hand-work, learning to 
handle materials much as primitive people used them. Fourth 
and fifth grade children assist the older in shops and drawing 
rooms. The junior high school organization here extends to 
the sixth grade, where actual work is begun, as responsible ap- 
prentices in some shop, utilizing the earlier experiences to defi- 
nite ends. These small shop classes resemble individual instruc- 
tion, thus emphasizing the guiding element. The Gary pupil 
may change his shop every five weeks ; he must change at least 
twice a year. As a responsible worker, rotating through three 
shop courses a year, living for two hours a day in the rudiments 
of many occupations, he tests his abilities. On leaving he has 
definite attitudes, encouraged by instruction in the possibilities 
of various trades. Gary averages nearly three hours such train- 
ing per day for each boy fourteen years or over. These schools 
are now working toward an advanced part-time system. By re- 
quiring attendance upon any three of the four quarters in an 
all school year, the vacation workers may be distributed evenly 
through the year. This would add a school quarter of practical 
work, and continuously utilize the shops and industries of Gary 
as real-life laboratories, at no increased expenditure. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 325 

Under such conditions, says Bourne, manual training as- 
sumes new meaning, interested groups cooperating as in a well- 
ordered factory. In the carpentry shop Taylor found youngsters 
so small they could scarcely see the top of the work bench 
making things either practical or of play utility. Boys making 
desks or tables or cabinets for the botany collections, or book- 
racks for the library, send them on to the paint-shop when 
finished. Only boys of sixteen are allowed in the cabinet shop. 
The children turn their own baseball bats as well as shop pat- 
terns. In the turning room, Taylor saw a thirteen-year-old 
eighth grade pupil turning a laboratory stool, its base cast in 
the school foundry. In the blacksmith shop, a fifth grade boy 
was mending his roller skates ; while all forged iron work in 
the elaborate playground equipment is made here. The Ameri- 
can Bridge Company manufactured the charging platforms for 
the foundry from specifications drawn in the drafting room. 
The Emerson machine shop for children above the seventh grade 
has some $8,000 worth of ec[uipment. Bourne found boys in 
the sheet-metal shop hammering zinc for the roof ; they manu- 
facture the school utensils. Young electricians were repairing. 
Several of the plumbing shops possess extensive equipment. 
The shoeless condition of some of the Froebel children has 
led to a cobbling shop. The printing shop is as well equipped 
as a commercial printer, teaches the whole art of printing and 
bookbinding, and does all the school work. 

Many of the girls in the advanced grades not only study 
home-making, but are in millinery or arts and crafts or print- 
ing, others in the school store and school bank, both actual busi- 
ness departments. The Emerson school office, for example, does 
all the school accounting, sufficient to keep some ten pupils busy 
daily, and gives pre-commercial experiences to about 120. The 
storerooms are included, so that the accurate records of sup- 
plies and costs are kept. This work includes stenography, type- 
writing and business methods. These girls also have a serving 
room, in which to make their own clothes. Another excellent 
illustration is the school lunchroom of the cooking department, 
serving real lunches to students who pay a student cashier. 
The girls do all the planning, buying and accounting. They 
post daily menus, with prices and food values, based on chem- 
ical laboratory analyses. 



i^b SELECTED ARTICLES 



POINT OF VIEW ' 

The opportunities for vocational exploration and guidance 
during the school years represented by the junior high school 
are so wonderful that it seems a pity to think of manual train- 
ing and household arts in terms of two periods a week and 
involving only woodwork, cooking and sewing. 

It seems to me, in the first place, that over the door of the 
manual and other arts departments of a junior high school there 
should be the words "Dedicated to the Spirit of Adolescent 
Youth." Beyond the door we expect to find a teacher of the 
Boy Scout leader type. When we see the room, or rooms, we 
discover a corner for automobiles, another for printing, another 
for concrete work and a dozen other corners for wireless, air- 
planes, telegraphy, telephony, electricity, farm projects, simple 
sheet-metal work, elements of pattern making and molding and 
so on. 

The teacher does not think in terms of a tool exercise and 
then hunt around the universe for a project on which to fasten 
it. He reverses the process by bringing into the school-room 
some project dealing with boy life and then weaves in the 
necessary knowledge and skill to develop the project. The 
adolescent mind is a project thinking mind; it is an exploring 
mind ; it is a mind full of enthusiasm and initiative ; it is a 
mind that wants to see something go. That is why it likes 
automobile work, wireless, airplanes and bell-ringing electricity. 

Only recently I saw such a room, such a teacher and such 
boys. He was a Boy Scout leader on Saturdays and on school 
days 'he was a manual training teacher. He could tinker with 
anything and make it go, including a boy's mind, or perhaps I 
ought to say, that the boys could tinker with his mind and 
make it work in accordance with their adolescent desires. At 
one time he had twenty-four manual training benches with 
twenty-four sets of tools, twenty-four boys and twenty-four 
models for the twenty-four hours of a shop term. Now he has 
eight woodworking benches, one for sheet metal, an electrical 
bench, a bench for pipe cutting and fitting, an enclosed corner 
for a printing press, a tool room with a boy in charge of the 

1 By Arthur Dean, Manual Training. 21:31618. May, 1920. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 327 

special tools, used for many activities, and a lot of catalogues, 
blueprints, magazine articles and books relating to the mechan- 
ical delights of boys, and finally, best of all, a crowd of boys 
around him who are as enthusiastic for five days, in a base- 
ment schoolroom as they are on Saturdays with him in the 
woods around a campfire and eating baked but burned potatoes. 

In another school I saw boys and girls in the commercial 
department were assigned in turn at the school telephone ex- 
change, at the paying and receiving teller's desks, as guides for 
school visitors, as managers of the lunch room, etc. They were 
handling the school reports, taking care of the school grounds, 
planting bushes and flowers, acting as a sanitary corps for the 
Jiygienic upkeep of the building, serving as first aiders in time 
of accident or sickness, and so on. The boys and girls on the 
editorial board of the school paper, had special English instruc- 
tion two hours every day, which related to their editorial work. 
They were devising headlines for submitted articles, shortening 
articles which were too long, and lengthening articles which 
were too short. They were reading proof, collecting advertise- 
ments, taking care of the subscription list, printing the paper, 
and so on. Furthermore, they were connecting their civics with 
school government in a sort of joint council idea between 
teachers and pupils. 

All the "arts" activities of these schools focused around vo- 
cational guidance and vocational selection and aroused interests 
in further education. They brought activity outside of school 
into activity within the school. The activity within the school 
functioned with activity without the school. The spirit of the 
teaching thruout was the spirit of the Boy Scout movement. 

NEGLECTED OPPORTUNITIES IN ELEMEN- 
TARY SCHOOLS ' 

There is another phase of our educational symphony which 
is as important as our great leit motif, that is the ideal of social 
service, a motif second only in phraseology. So far we have 
accentuated but little the altruistic phases of education. We 
have built up a system which is as care-free, as selfish, as pos- 

1 From article by H. W. Schmidt. Educational Review. 59:304-14. 
April, 1920. 



328 SELECTED ARTICLES 

sible, from the standpoint of the child — that we should ask, 
nay demand, a return for service rendered, that the state has 
a right to expect it, has never been made much of a point and, 
I fear, has been sadly neglected. The war has brought this 
phase of the matter to the fore as no other cause could have 
and the time is ripe that we instil in the minds of our youth 
the idea that participation in the benefits of our public insti- 
tutions of necessity entails on their part a social service, com- 
mensurate in a measure with such benefits — that the state ex- 
pects it and that such service to our fellows is a part of our 
life's work. Is it not true that satisfaction in life, happiness 
and all are directly measurable in terms of the satisfaction de- 
rived from the feeling that one has done something worth 
while in this world, that he has contributed something to the 
welfare and progress of society and has been of real service to 
his fellows ? Children are very susceptible to this argument 
if the matter is put up to them thru the right kind of training. 
They certainly react in the measure that this vital social fact 
is brought before them. 

Possibly the various forms of handwork which we have 
in our schools lend themselves most readily to the thought I 
have in mind, and I will use them freely as examples. We 
have primary handwork, intermediate handwork, manual train- 
ing, domestic science and art, but I believe they are not serving 
us to the extent that they should, that we have not utilized them 
as means for attaining serviceable, social ends. Under the above 
main headings we have varied activities such as paper and card- 
board work, weaving and work in textiles, raphia work, clay 
modeling, woodwork, cooking, sewing, printing, etc. They too 
often serve as ends in themselves, not as means to an end 
which possesses real social significance in the broader sense. 
Can these not be utilized more fully in the desirable direction? 

In our work in paper and cardboard there are opportuni- 
ties to drive home vocational and social facts, facts of an in- 
tensely interesting character, such as : paper making, wood pulp, 
sulphite, rag and wood papers, linen ledgers, bonds, news, water 
marks, plain and laid flats, colored flats, covers, plate papers, 
cardboards, jute and rope manila, cloth and binder's boards, 
bristols, enameled and ply boards, weighted and calendered 
papers. Folio, demy, cap, etc., sizes. Why is writing paper 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 329 

cut certain sizes? What is meant by quarto, duo decimo? Why 
is most of our examination paper cut 8j^" x 11"? How is paper 
made and tested? Why is it that paper has a grain? How is 
hand-made paper made? These are all facts which can be 
demonstrated to fifth-grade children. You can test paper — they 
can. You can show dozens of kinds of papers by means of 
samples obtained most anywhere and at all times. Opportunities 
for arithmetic in cutting and laying out paper for book work 
are unlimited and represent actualities. Why has paper risen 
so in price ; is wood pulp imported free ; what does it cost a 
newspaper for print paper ; are you getting real value when 
buying paper? These are some of the hundreds of questions 
which are open for discussion in this one subject alone. 

How about the work in weaving and sewing and textiles? 
Do you boys and girls know how ordinary cloth is made? How 
cotton and linen goods are woven? Do they know what a 
Jacquard machine is? Do they know that the warp and woof 
of their little looms are relatively the same as those of the 
finest linen and silk goods? Do thej^ know that an endless 
■variety of textures may be produced by combinations of over- 
and underweaving? Have they tried this on their little looms? 
Can they recognize woolens, cottons and linens and test them? 
•Do they know that the strength of the goods is in a great meas- 
ure determined by the strength of the warp? Have your chil- 
dren ever had the opportunity to dissect various weaves in the 
schoolroom, analyze them and reproduce them on their looms? 
Do they know how moires and changeable silks are produced? 
How printed goods are made? Why some ginghams are more 
expensive than others? How the various raw materials are con- 
verted into the thread used on the looms? Have they learned 
all about the silk worm industry? What the difference is be- 
tween Brussels, Wiltons and ingrain carpets? How oriental 
rugs are woven and the influence of the rug industry on the 
peoples of the East? Why are orientals so expensive and why 
can we not reproduce them? 

Are your girls using a sewing machine or do they have to 
wait until they get into the high school before they are officially 
made acquainted with them? I will wager they use one at 
home — why not in school? Boys do not take kindly to cooking 
or sewing as a rule. Have you tried camp cooking or emer- 



330 SELECTED ARTICLES 

gency sewing? They take to these. Have your boys made a 
real loom large enough for a good-sized rag rug? Maybe you 
have neglected a splendid opportunity for sociaHzing content. 

Have you clay modeling in your school? You make sculp- 
tures in clay, tiles and placques, candlesticks and bowls— you 
are instiling first principles of art, and that is good and well. 
But do your children know how bricks are made, how the vari- 
ous kinds are produced? What is the difference between com- 
mon and pressed or wire-cut brick? Why the old brick yard 
is a thing of the past? How bricks were made of old and 
why we now make bricks without straw? The history of the 
potter's craft and the making of bricks have within them the 
elements of historical pathos. Have your boys made a simple 
potter's wheel and have you made real pottery? What dis- 
tinguishes good from poor ware and where are the finer wares 
made? Why can we not make them here in our country? 
What is Satsuma, Dresden and Haviland ware? What is there 
about Japanese pottery that excels? Shall I continue? 

How about basketry and raphia work? Dare I ask what reed 
is or cane, or splints? How are baskets made commercially? 
Not a far step to the Indian, Alaskan, Chilean, Oriental or Afri- 
can basket. Their manufacture is tied up with the history of 
the nations and reflects the traits of the races. Possibly we 
could drag in history and geography. 

Let us look at manual training in the light of the fore- 
going. I believe we have sinned more imder the guise of man- 
ual training than years of penitence will make up for — it is not 
even training of the mind thru the hand. Ye shades of 
Otto Salomon ! Frankly it is nearly always busy work so far 
as real ends are concerned and the use of the subject towards 
real social ends is sadly neglected. The benefits are circum- 
spectional not directed, and in but few cases is a real end 
sought after. 

But what exceptional opportunities are thus lost ! Here is 
our opportunity for doing real directed work having a tre- 
mendous socializing value, the desired characteristics of voca- 
tionalism and one which may be utilized to that end freely 
and with the hearty cooperation of the pupils. Why have we 
not seized the opportunity sooner? Possibly because the call 
has not been heard until of late and possibly because the work 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 331 

was still steeped in its traditional aspects and possibly also be- 
cause its teachers did not fully realize its scope on the side 
of practicality and real social significance. We know the aver- 
age teacher considers himself slightly above the vocational as- 
pects of the work and likes to lean more on the side of educa- 
tion, pedagogical values, psychological significance, and other 
stock stuff, while the man of work looks down with supreme 
contempt upon the work done in the school. Leaving the prac- 
tical man out of the discussion, why should the manual train- 
ing teacher be impractical, teach for teaching's sake and seek 
no particular end which will stand the test of society at large? 
I do not advocate a commercial standard of production for the 
school shops, but I do believe that there should be laid the 
foundation for subsequent work of a more finished character. 
I would consider the training preeminently socializing, pre-vo- 
cational. 



ELEMENTS OF PRACTICAL ARTS FOR 
GENERAL EDUCATION^ 

In Teachers College our organization of practical arts grew 
out of our very liberal conception of technical education, and 
so to us "practical arts" have come to include all the educa- 
tional subjects that are based on a technique or special method 
of doing things. Hence, in this wide sense, practical arts — 
which would have been better understood if christened "tech- 
nical arts" — include fine arts, household arts, industrial arts 
(both agricultural and mechanical), music, nursing, applied hy- 
giene, and physical education. These may or may not be "prac- 
tical" or "applied." For example, drawing may be "practical" 
if applied to house decoration or machine design, but if not 
applied, it is no more practical (in the usual material sense) 
than history, literature, or pure science. 

I realize that some misunderstanding has arisen from the 
common use of the word "practical." It seems to me that it 
is a mistake to understand technical arts as practical or useful 
only because they commonly have a close relation to the physical 

^ By Maurice A. Bigelow, Director of School of Practical Arts, Teach- 
ers College. Teachers College Record. 17:1-6. January, 19 16. 



22,2 SELECTED ARTICLES 

or material affairs of everyday life, or because they may be 
used vocationally as a means of getting a living. I prefer rather 
to take Huxley's broader view of "practical" and regard knowl- 
edge of every kind as useful in proportion as it tends to affect 
our daily lives. Looking at practical arts from this standpoint, 
I am forced to regard an understanding of the elements of 
the technical arts as an essential part of the "practical" educa- 
tion of men and women, and with or' without regard to pos- 
sible physical or vocational use of the technical knowledge. 

Practical arts education should be regarded as closely identi- 
fied with vocational education only when technical efficiency is 
emphasized. Those who look at the practical arts with the 
narrowest vision see its values merely in terms of possible 
vocational application. This, I believe, is an unfortunately nar- 
row outlook. The elements of practical arts may be made very 
important as a phase of general education that is not directed 
towards vocational ends. Perhaps I can make this point clearer 
by some illustrations : Music and fine arts deserve to be part of 
general education because they may be of great significance, or 
"practical" in the larger sense, to many who do not apply them 
vocationally. Many of the elementary ideas of household arts, 
such as the economics of food supply, the principles of cook- 
ery, the main facts of nutrition, home sanitation, and the prin- 
ciples of house decoration, should be part of the practical edu- 
cation of all boys ; but certainly few boys will find their voca- 
tions in the field of household arts. Similarly, certain elementary 
knowledge of industrial arts (including elementary agriculture) 
should be taught to girls without reference to vocational appli- 
cation. These are illustrations of how the elements of practi- 
cal arts may be fitted into our daily lives in numerous useful, 
but non-vocational, ways. 

The above suggestions as to the desirability of similar ele- 
mentary training in the practical arts for both sexes leads me 
to the problem of differentiation for boys and girls. In these 
days we hear much discussion of sex differentiated education, 
and it usually refers to the field of practical arts. We do not 
hear any serious educators advocating one kind of selection of 
literature or history or mathematics for girls and another for 
boys ; but we hear many proclaiming that household arts is the 
proper study for girls, and that simultaneously the boys should 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 333 

study mechanical or agricultural arts. Some well-known edu- 
cators have gone so far as to declare that co-education is a 
mistake in so far as it means similar education for the two 
sexes ; and by "similar education" they mean the old-line edu- 
cation without practical arts. 

Now, we must admit that the advanced technical aspects of 
household, industrial, mechanical, or agricultural arts are not of 
equal interest to both sexes ; and, hence, practical arts educa- 
tion in its specialized forms must be dissimilar. But note that 
this refers to the advanced technical or special work and not 
to the elementary study of the leading facts and principles of 
practical arts. With regard to these, I insist that there should 
be no differentiation on sex lines, and I feel sure that we have 
already gone too far in drawing the line between the elementary 
practical arts for the two sexes. Let me illustrate : In many 
schools of the United States we find household arts specified 
for girls in elementary grades and in the early years of the 
high school, while parallel work in agriculture or industrial arts 
is assigned to the boys. The result is that some of the most 
useful applied science is sex-limited. Elementary lessons in 
household arts contain important facts and ideas concerning 
food economics, principles of nutrition, applied chemistry and 
physics, bacteriology, sanitation, first principles of cookery — 
all of which should be a part of the practical, but not technical, 
education of both and boys and girls. It is not fair to the 
boys that such a train of useful scientific applications should 
be reserved for the girls under a system of sex-limited in- 
struction in household arts. On the other hand, the agricultural 
or industrial arts assigned to the boys deal, in the elementary 
instruction, with many facts that should not be monopolized 
knowledge of the male sex. Industrial arts deal with the 
world's work and modern women should have cultural, if not 
technical, knowledge of the great industrial relations and prob- 
lems. Therefore, I advocate that girls should have elementary 
shopwork instruction, especially since so much of it applies to 
the home and at the same time will help women to understand 
industrial life; and they should have at least one year of ele- 
mentary agriculture in every school which offers it for the boys. 

These illustrations will make clear my meaning when I de- 
clare that we have already made some serious mistakes in dif- 



334 SELECTED ARTICLES 

ferentiating certain aspects of elementary practical arts along 
sex lines. This extreme differentiation seems to have had its 
origin in the names and definitions given to household and in- 
dustrial arts. Some committee declared years ago that house- 
work is not an industry and that industrial arts are primarily 
of interest to males. Having thus set off household arts ex- 
clusively for women and industrial arts largely for men, the 
courses of study in our schools have been developed without 
regard to the fact that in the elementary facts and ideas of 
each of these practical arts there is much of value and interest 
to both sexes. 

Now, as the solution of this problem, which I believe is the 
most important one which now affects practical arts for public 
schools, especially in years below the second of high school : 
Evidently we can not solve it by advising household arts for 
boys or industrial shopwork for girls. Boys will not elect 
courses called household arts, or domestic science, or home 
economics. A few girls will elect, under favorable conditions, 
agriculture or mechanical arts. The result is sex-differentiated 
practical arts. It cannot be otherwise under the names "house- 
hold" and "industrial." I have come to beheve that we must 
offer the elementary practical arts of interest to both sexes 
under new names, and not apply such names as industrial arts, 
household arts, or agriculture, until advanced technical differ- 
entiation between the two sexes is natural and useful. In my 
opinion, a very limited amount of such specialized study is 
needed in elementary schools. 

There are two possible arrangements looking towards this 
end: (i)' Teach the elements of practical arts equally to chil- 
dren of both sexes in elementary schools; and call such study 
"practical arts," not household or industrial arts. (2) Involve 
the elements of practical arts in the other subjects which are 
fundamentals for practical arts. This means fine arts and the 
natural sciences (including nature-study and elementary science). 

I prefer the second suggestion for the beginning because it 
seems to me most natural and economical. However, the 
teacher must work from the practical arts point of view, and 
so it little matters whether the desirable studies be presented 
as elementary practical arts or as applications of elementary 
sciences and fine arts. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 335 

By teaching the elements of practical arts in connection with 
the fundamental subjects, I mean that beginning with the earliest 
nature-study and art work the practical bearings should be de- 
veloped. For example, the art lessons of the elementary schools 
might be arranged so as to give both boys and girls the essen- 
tial knowledge of the household arts applications in home fur- 
nishings and decoration and costume design. Of course, I do 
not mean technical training in these lines ; but, for that matter, 
no very important technical training could be taught in ele- 
mentary schools even if these applications of art were limited 
to girls in a class in "domestic art." In a similar manner, all 
the important facts of hygiene, nutrition, food economics, home 
sanitation, and even the principles of cookery, can be made 
interesting to both boys and girls of years equivalent to junior 
high school, if presented as integral parts of a good course, 
or courses, in nature-study and introduction to science or ele- 
mentary science, often misnamed "general science." This also 
gives numerous opportunities for the mechanical side of indus- 
trial arts. In like manner, the elements of agriculture (not the 
technique) should be taught so as to reach both boys and girls, 
in nature-study and in applied biology. These are some ways 
of making elementary practical arts essentially the same for 
both sexes. 

Summarizing the above points, I conclude that sex-differ- 
entiated study of elementary practical arts should be avoided 
(i) because it is highly desirable that education in general 
should tend to make men and women sympathetically inter- 
ested in the same problems of life; (2) because it is financially 
desirable that the values of elementary practical arts be obtained 
as far as possible without the added expenses inevitably con- 
nected with new and special classes; and (3) because the pres- 
ent differentiation between the sexes deprives each of knowl- 
edge which is important for the practical purposes of every- 
day life. For these three reasons, I urge that the elementary 
facts and principles of practical arts should be taught so as to 
make both sexes understand (but not be experts in) the same 
practical problems of life. Co-education will deserve to be a 
failure if it does not give young men and young women similar 
outlooks on life in all its aspects — practical as well as intellec- 
tual. Thus viewing the possibility of cultural rather than vo- 



33(i SELECTED ARTICLES 

cational or technical, bearings of the practical arts, I am un- 
able to believe in sex-differentiated elementary studies in these 
lines. 

In closing, let me emphasize the thought already expressed 
that, while technical aspects of the practical arts are beyond 
question the foundations of special or vocational training, the 
leadings facts or ideas, that is, the elements of the practical 
arts, deserve a prominent place in education for general cul- 
ture, because they have the larger "practical" bearing on our 
daily lives. 



BASES OF LABOR EDUCATION' 

Labor education is not a training for a vocation. It is 
rather a development of avocations. Labor education should 
not transfer unchanged the curricula and aims of accepted 
schemes of education. I am convinced that the primary bases 
of labor education rest on the solid realities of our lives. We 
are members of families, dwellers in or citizens of a com- 
munity, a state, and a nation ; workers in an industry, and 
members of a trade union. The personal and social contacts 
and relations formed in these ways give us the bases on which 
to erect the super-structure of an educational system suited to 
intelligent adults. In the past, such haphazard and undirected 
education as the adult acquired was largely of a theoretic na- 
ture. We dabbled in "isms" and in political and social "futures." 
The time has come when we need know the facts of our en- 
vironment : their social, political, industrial and economic im- 
plications. 

The second main prop or support of labor education is our 
need, as workers, to have a clear knowledge of the entire 
sweep of our industry. In the garment industries, for instance, 
we need to study the facts of production and distribution in 
all the stages from the growing of cotton, through the textile 
mills, through the final manufactured product in our shops and 
factories, and the distribution of these manufactured products. 

* From article "Workers' University of the International Ladies' 
Garment Workers' Union," by Louis S. Friedland, Educational Director. 
School and Society. 11:348-50. March 20, 1920. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 237 

For this reason, we are interested in the economics of the indus- 
trial system rather than in some generaUzed or theoretic type 
of economics. There is no stage in the gamut of education 
which can not be based on the facts of an industry. Such a re- 
basing of education will bring about, among the workers, a 
new and keener interest in the processes, hitherto somewhat 
mechanical, of their labor. It will reveal to them all the social 
and international implications of the work which they do from 
kiay to day. That such an undertaking of work will help to 
make it more creative and self-expressive from the standpoint 
of the individual worker goes without saying. And, when, to 
this, we add the definite and clear aim of organized labor — to 
share in the control and management of production and dis- 
tribution — our daily labor will assume a new dignity and im- 
portance. It is only by laying such foundations now that the 
workers will inherit the future. 

Finally, we can not afiford, in labor education, to lose sight 
of the human, the personal element. There is no doubt in my 
mind that the industrial conditions of the last century and more 
have resulted in a gradual deterioration of human material— a 
process which has not been stemmed, and for the prevention 
of which very little systematized effort has been made. We 
have used our energy, our intelligence, our enthusiasm, our 
forethought, for the production and perfection of machines and 
of manufactured material. We have ended by becoming the 
slaves of our own handiwork. We can work machines, but 
machines and the conditions of industry have mastered us. If 
is necessary to regain control of ourselves as human beings, 
to assume mastery of our bodies and souls, to come to a knowl- 
edge of the human machine, to regain case and grace of move- 
ment. For these reasons, health education and physical train- 
ing and right modes of recreation are necessary ingredients of 
workers' education. With the acquiring of greater degrees of 
leisure, we need to learn the right use of leisure. The worker 
will not translate his free time in terms of idleness, extrava- 
gance, and riotous living. For the worker, leisure must be filled 
with activity and self-expression. Whatever powers, talents and 
faculties have lain dormant in the masses of workers for gen- 
erations must, through education, be brought to light for the 
saving of workers, and for the salvation of society. 



338 SELECTED ARTICLES 



COOPERATIVE PLAN' 

Again, some lessons can be learned only through practical 
experience in the ways of the world. Some of these lessons in- 
clude the proper relation between the material and the spiritual 
phases of life, the meaning and value of money, the meaning 
of work and wages, and the relation between them, the im- 
portance of life motives. The learning of these lessons is of 
as much consequence to one individual as to another, irre- 
spective of economic, intellectual, or social status. The co- 
operative plan is a contribution to the solution of some of the 
problems involved, and hence its advantages should be placed 
within the reach of all youth. 

With these considerations in mind, the special advantages 
of the cooperative plan in the high school may be summarized 
as follows : 

(i) The safeguards thrown about the young people in their 
places of employment, through the supervision exercised by the 
school and the cooperation of employers, show an almost un- 
believable improvement over the conditions hitherto charac- 
terizing the employment of minors in many places. 

(2) The cooperative plan makes it possible for some boys 
and girls to continue in school, because of wages earned on 
half-time. Prolonging the period of active connection with the 
school, and of contact with sympathetic teachers and advisers, 
confers an incalculable benefit on growing boys and girls, and 
should lead to a permanent impetus to better things. 

(3) The plan will doubtless induce some to remain in school 
because the school work is thus made more interesting, and 
the student can see a more direct relation between schooling 
and the promotion of his own interests. 

(4) The experience involved promote a more earnest and 
thoughtful attitude toward work and the responsibilities of 
life. 

(5) The plan discourages idleness and unwholesome use 
of time, since the longer school day and year are fully occu- 
pied with interesting activities. 

1 From "Vocational Education," by William T. Bawden. United 
States Bureau of Education. Bui. 10 19, no. 25, p. 22-3. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 339 

(6) The opportunity to engage in gainful employjnent on 
half-time, under suitable auspices, has a definite prevocational 
value, assisting young persons to discover their tastes and prob- 
able aptitudes. 

(7) The successful operation of a cooperative school or 
class affords a convincing demonstration that a reasonable 
amount of work, under proper conditions, can be made to con- 
tribute definitely to the development of youth, instead of be- 
ing, as frequently heretofore, a demoralizing, disheartening, and 
stunting influence. 

(8) The plan gives the student, at the very least, a foot- 
hold in some industry or occupation, so that he does not feel 
lost when the time comes to leave school and take up the re- 
sponsibilities of self-support. 

(9) It should be emphasized that this plan does not neglect 
the need for general education, but insures to each individual 
an amount of cultural and liberalizing education sufficient to 
serve as a foundation for further study if he later finds it pos- 
sible to continvie his education. He certainly gets more of the 
cultural side of education than he will if he leaves school en- 
tirely to go to work. 



SCHOOLING IN SERVICE^ 

The stranger in our city was standing on Main Street with 
two unexpected hours at his disposal. He inquired of two boys 
coming out of a bank about the city's chief points of interest. 
They directed him to the new government post-office, the armory, 
and other places of attraction common to all cities. 

"Let's ask if he wants to see the school," said one of the 
boys as he looked back and saw the stranger standing indif- 
ferently on the curb where they had left him. They returned. 
Their interest in their school interested him. "Well, boys, I am 
from the doubtful state and in a doubtful state," laughed he. 
"Show me the way." 

At the entrance of the main building of the State Normal 
School in Fitchburg the visitor was met by a boy dressed in 

1 By Willis B. Anthony, Director of Practical Arts Department State 
Normal School, Fitchburg, Mass. Industrial Arts Magazine. 8:215-19- 
June, 19 19. 



340 SELECTED ARTICLES 

green livery fronted with brass buttons, who took his hat, coat 
and belongings, and returned with a check. Thinking the boy 
was hired for the purpose the stranger offered him a tip. The 
boy wouldn't take it, saying that he was a school boy in serv- 
ice, giving his share of time as a messenger. 

"Upon learning that I was leaving by train," the stranger 
told us later, after the messenger had ushered him to the office 
door, "the little lad in green coat and brass buttons offered to 
telephone and find if my train was on time. He said he would 
arrange for a taxi and spoke as if I might decide on a later 
train after I had started looking the place over. Visitors some- 
times had him look up the next train before they got thru with 
the school, and he would do it for me." 

We entered a large room where twelve to fourteen-year-old 
clerical workers were doing parts of the large amount of busi- 
ness reading, writing and arithmetic, which is always necessary 
in running so large an educational plant. The room is divided 
into three sections. Thirty type-writers almost rattle the glass 
partitions of the first section. 

"What's this boy doing?" asked the visitor as he sat down 
beside a checking machine. "Paying our debts, sir," the boy 
repHed, as he handed over a pile of official looking papers which 
he had copied, with an occasional help from his teacher, from 
a list which she had given him. "What ! Do all of these 
mean real money?" was asked. "Indeed they do." A few 
weeks before another boy serving his turn with his checking 
mate at the machine had made out as part of their regular 
work a check for $49,500 of real money to be paid to a local 
contractor for his work on the new dormitory. The little 
fellow's hand never trembled and it is easy to believe that the 
decimal points were all in good standing. These points were 
allowed to carelessly slip neither one or two places to the left 
or right. The boy knew that such a mistake would make a 
difference to the contractor and to the State of Massachusetts 
and besides such a break would "queer" him and the commer- 
cial department of which he was a member. 

Years ago we got check writing as a finishing touch before 
entering high school. Such decimal days caused dismal stays 
after school. When those checks were finally all done, the 
the best of them beautified the bulletin board and the rest of 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 341 

them beautified the waste places. To the best of our knowledge 
those in the waste places were more useful than those on the 
board. They were emptied from the waste boxes into the fire 
boxes where they helped the janitor start his morning blaze. 

Shut oflf from the noise of industry made by the typewriters 
are two telephone booths. One is for private calls. The other 
contains the school's switchboard. This switchboard is operated 
by a "hello girl" in her earliest 'teens. She serves her share 
of time in answering the signal lights which wink on and off. 
She plugs in connections according to the call for or from any 
one of the twenty telephones on the property. 

At the opposite end of the room are five hundred post-office 
boxes where twelve to fourteen-year-old nieces and nephews 
serve their Uncle Samuel in sorting and delivering the morn- 
ing and afternoon mail. Proud of his suit of official gray the 
postmasterling stands behind the iron grill serving his turn at 
the delivery window. 

Between the post-office and the telephone section there is a 
large counter where paymasters and tellers handle money, 
ring the cash register, write receipts in duplicate, and sell sup- 
plies. Visitors cause no distraction. Doing work on a cash and 
credit basis, operating the filing cabinets and the adding machine, 
or the posting of loose-leaf ledgers, necessitates business-like 
concentration. The juvenile workers have become accustomed 
to strangers just as they have accepted the expressman, the 
telephone inspectors, and demonstrators of new office equip- 
ment, as associates in every-day work. There is a welcoming 
nod of recognition for all and the work goes on. 

The visitor decided to take the later train and agreed ta 
speak at assembly after lunch. 

"I have seen boys doing things today, which I had to play 
hookey to do when I was in school. I have seen boys using 
benches and girls using cooking tables, which your earlier boys 
of nine years ago helped to build. I have seen boys binding 
school magazines and repairing their school books. I have seen 
samples of all the printing that has been done. I learn that 
those tennis courts were school made and saw you learning how 
to use them." 

"What do you suppose happens when the faucet leaks in 
my house? My wife tells me and I tell the plumber. He comes 



342 SELECTED ARTICLES 

out from the city and I pay the price. I understand that when 
your school pipes freeze and the faucets leak that these boys 
are guided in locating the trouble and help make things right. 

"I have talked with tradesmen on your faculty who work 
with you. I also find there are young journeymen and high 
school graduates, sixty in all, who have given up their jobs for 
the sake of being students at this institution. I have seen these 
young men students at work in their own classes and with their 
own classes of boys, training to be teachers of this practical 
arts work with the boys of other towns and cities. I have been 
laughed at for taking some of the large boys in their overalls 
and jumpers for these young men and your faculty tradesmen. 
You all looked alike and acted alike. 

"When I reached this assembly the hall was dark. Four 
tremendous big acts were going on in that moving picture booth 
of yours. The whole plot was as bright as day on this screen 
before you. I find it hard to realize that I am visiting school. 
I fail to find where running this place as a business stops and 
where running it as a school begins." 

School life is going to give part-time to the introduction 
of such real life activities as will give boys and girls, long be- 
fore they become of age, a chance to do the best act expected 
of a citizen — the doing of better than his bit, the giving of his 
best. During the habit-making period of their 'teens, boys and 
girls are going to have personal experiences in Service. These 
experiences will fix in their consciousness a knowledge of the 
jogs and joys in the job of giving their share in the work of 
"world building" which should and must be delegated to them. 

Hung across the street is a bannered appeal for citizens to 
subscribe during a Red Cross drive. The next to the last line 
reads in flaring letters, "Give until it hurts." The author of 
that slogan characterized with more force than perhaps he knew 
the glaring failure of the schooling of his youth. We were 
schooled in the same class with him to strive for the results 
acquired from the use of ingoing rather than outgoing abilities. 
Consequently it has hurt to suddenly learn new habits of giving. 
In our first year at war we learned by heart more lessons in 
gift-making and in Service than in all our previous years of 
schooling. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 343 

IS THERE A PROFESSION OF BUSINESS AND 
CAN WE REALLY TRAIN FOR IT ? ' 

The most satisfactory answer is to be found in the growth 
and support of commercial education in this country. From 
what quarter has come the incentive for the establishment of 
commercial schools and colleges and commercial departments 
of universities? From enlightened business opinion looking to 
the future. Again, what has been the moving force for the in- 
stallation of courses in business administration looking to the 
training of young men eventually to fill the highest business 
positions, and again the answer, enlightened business opinion. 
Is this well founded? If not, how account for the growth of 
commercial school and university departments since the estab- 
lishment of the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce in 
connection with the University of Pennsylvania in 1881 and for 
the steady increase in numbers of students. How explain the 
demonstrated readiness of business men to cooperate with com- 
mercial departments by giving their time to lecturing, opening 
their plants to students, and the like? Assuredly interest may 
be stimulated by advertising, by novelty, by attractive conditions, 
but in the long run the law of supply and demand will assert 
itself. Universities and colleges will not continue to offer, much 
less to augment, courses for which there is little demand on the 
part of students ; nor will students enter courses for commer- 
cial training indefinitely unless there is a demand for the com- 
mercially educated in the business world. And it is now only 
thirty-five years since the Wharton School of Finance and 
Commerce was founded. 

Those who doubt and cavil at the value of commercial edu- 
cation for business have closed their eyes to the extent to which 
business has become professionalized. They have failed to note 
the lawyers, the engineers, the chemists, the accountants, the sci- 
entific managers who from position of consultants only in 
emergencies have come to occupy positions of heads of de- 
partments, business managers, partners or chief demonstrators 

^ From article by Elliot H. Goodwin, General Secretary United States 
Chamber of Commerce, Washington, D.C. Pan-American Scientific Con- 
gress. Proceedings. 1915. v. 4, p. 94-8. 



344 SELECTED ARTICLES 

and owners. They have passed over with singular obtuseness 
the professionalizing of their own staffs, or of those of their 
successful competitors, in specializing in advertising, cost ac- 
counting, salesmanship, handling of industrial problems, employ- 
ment, and the like. With all the advance for American busi- 
ness has made, there remain those who refuse to recognize the 
changed conditions that time has brought, who desire to be let 
alone to do business in the old way and who spend their time 
in inveighing against laws and restrictions, supervision and con- 
trol, the organization of labor, and other conditions that have 
come to stay. Fundamentally they lack the education and the 
resulting elasticity to conform to the new and are engaged in 
butting their heads against the wall. Every now and then a 
failure in the old-established form of solid reputation calls 
striking attention to this attitude on the part of American 
business. 

There has been and there always will be two schools — and 
it is really fortunate that it is so — composed of those, on the 
one hand, who lay main stress on the lesson of actual experience 
and those on the other, who advocate the previous training as 
doing away in part the necessity of learning by experience. The 
one exercises a curb on the other. It is easy to maintain that 
too much time may be spent in preparation so that the youth 
is delayed beyond the proper age for taking up the practical 
end, but it is becoming more and more difficult to understand 
in the present and growing complexity of business how the 
youth who enters business as an office boy or brakeman can 
acquire, through experiences alone, the training which will ad- 
vance him to the head. 

Clearly the school of practical experience produces but a 
small proportion of men with large business capacity. As a 
method of training it is wasteful. It Is equally clear that the 
college or university commercial training cannot be expected 
to graduate only those of marked business ability any more than 
law schools produce great lawyers or medical schools produce 
great surgeons. Much remains with the man himself, his in- 
born capacity and power to expand. Yet professional training 
for lawyers and doctors is now universally accepted. What is 
there about business capacity or executive ability that would 
place them between the pale of those things for which a special 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 345 

education is valuable? Is it the power to handle men? Then 
the training of the army officer or the professor should be 
equally futile. Is it the imagination, the power to grasp and 
arrange in an orderly manner and execute? If these can not 
be trained in part what practical purpose does it serve? To 
what end the study of history and biography if it does not en- 
able us to apply the experience and the ingenuity of others to 
our own problems? In spite of the example of men in all 
walks of life who have started at the bottom and risen to the 
highest places, there is nothing so sad in business and industry 
as the consideration of go per cent, of those who are competent 
for the positions they fill who lack the education or the almost 
superhuman will to make up for its lack that will permit them 
to rise above a certain dead level. 

In commercial education lies the hope for the future of 
American business. 



PROGRESS IN VOCATIONAL AGRICULTURAL 
EDUCATION ' 

In recognizing the nation's interest in secondary agricultural 
education a fundamental principle in all education for all of 
the people is all but admitted. More and more we are begin- 
ning to see that in a democracy the problem of educating all 
of the people is a problem not for the local community alone, 
nor for the state and local community, but for the state and 
community working in cooperation with the Federal Govern- 
ment. 

Vocational agriculture as we understand it today has to do 
with the training of a more efficient and more productive farm- 
ing citizenship. This means that in addition to learning those 
things that will make the young men who elect this work bet- 
ter farmers, they will also receive that training that will enable 
them to assume the responsibilities of citizenships in a progres- 
sive rural community. In other words, a course in vocational 
agriculture is not a so-called "tradesman's" course. It is the 
best preparation for a productive life on the farm. 

1 By W. S. Taylor, Professor of Agricultural Education. Penn State 
Farmer. 13:131. January, 1920. 



346 SELECTED ARTICLES 

In 1917-18, the first year the Federal Vocational Education 
Act was in operation, there were 569 schools offering instruction 
to boys and girls who wanted to become farmers. There were 
enrolled in these 569 schools 15,187 earnest, enthusiastic boys 
and girls. Their earnestness is attested by the fact that each 
student enrolling in vocational agriculture carries an agricul- 
tural project covering a period of six months or more. 

In 1918-19 there were 812 schools with an enrollment of 
21,033 students. This shows an increase of 43 per cent, in the 
number of schools and of 39 per cent, in the pupils enrolled. 
This growth has made during the period of the war, a time 
when it was difficult to find men available for teaching in this 
field. 



PART-TIME EDUCATION IN HOUSEHOLD 
ARTS' 

A new note has been struck in education. It may have been 
sounding for some time past, but in the present world conflict 
attention has been directed to it so that laymen and educators 
alike recognize its purpose and its force. This new note is 
voiced in the press and in public speech as "education for serv- 
ice." Attention so long centered upon the personal career of the 
pupil is now bent upon education for the service which each 
individual must render to human society. It is bigger than the 
individual, or the family ; than the state or the nation ; it is world 
service. So deep has this thought been driven into the social 
consciousness of the people that cooperative measures in edu- 
cation, merely tolerated less than a decade ago, are today re- 
ceiving the wholehearted support of laymen, parents, social 
workers, employees, employers, and educators — a combined force 
which, if wisely directed, augurs greater advancement in edu- 
cation in the next generation than has been known in past years. 

Education for service promises the most desirable develop- 
ment of the individual; hence the old ideal is merged into the 
new in a way which promises the best use of the old in the de- 
velopment of the new ideal. Education is, we believe, dedicated 

^ Address delivered before the Home Economics Session of the Na- 
tional Education Association Convention, New York, July 4, 19 16, by 
Cleo Murtland. Journal of Home Economics. 9:51-8. February, 1917- 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 347 

to flexibility which makes it possible to discover the service in- 
dividuals may render, and to train them so that their talents 
may be utilized to their own satisfaction and the good of so- 
ciety. In this sense, we heartily approve of replacing the per- 
sonal in education for the impersonal, altruistic ideal which serv- 
ice to others implies. This spirit of education is to be wel- 
comed in household arts education if it can eliminate the over- 
emphasis of the personal which has militated so strongly against 
its fullest success. 

Education for service follows so close upon the heels of the 
movement for education for all boys and all girls, whether rich 
or poor, well endowed or less fortunate mentally, physically fit 
or unfit, as to merge them into one. Service is altruism, not 
commercialism, in the light of this interpretation. There are no 
longer any mental reservations in the statement "education for 
all." We all believe in it. There is no longer serious debate 
as to the inefficacy of one type of education for all. Individual 
differences are recognized and education is being shaped to 
meet them as they become defined. 

Time is no longer wasted upon discussion as to whether the 
education of the boys and girls who enter the workshops, the 
stores, the factories, the offices, is completed when they have 
gained enough information to secure a position. Education be- 
yond that which may be given in the schoolroom during the ele- 
mentary school period, the high school period, and in all-day 
schools, no longer constitutes education according to modern 
standards. The workshop is being carried into the school and 
the school into the workshop. The tearing down of school 
fences, so that the school may spread out into community life, 
and community activities may enter the school, opens up edu- 
cational possibilities little dreamed of a decade ago. 

Household arts education taught by the part-time method 
will demand teachers of broad social interest, women who can 
bend their scientific knowledge and specialized training to the 
development of education for service. The ideals of house- 
hold arts education will remain high, but will be made suf- 
ficiently flexible to meet the needs of different groups of women 
and varying types of homes. At first-hand knowledge of home 
problems will constitute an important part of their training; the 
ability to meet the home-making situations intelligently, and to 



348 SELECTED ARTICLES 

impart instruction relative to them, will replace the formal 
methods we now have. Household arts education under this 
new order has its great opportunity. 



THE HARVARD BUREAU OF VOCATIONAL 
GUIDANCE^ 

The idea of an organized effort to aid young people in 
choosing their vocations, preparing for them, and making 
progress in them, originated with Professor Frank Parsons, of 
the Law School of Boston University, while he was preparing 
his book, "The Ideal City." A few successful experiments at 
the Civic Service House in Boston led to the raising of funds 
for the support of a central Bureau, of which Professor Par- 
sons was made Director. In 1908, an office was secured in the 
heart of the business district and the doors were opened to any 
who might come for help with their vocational problems. 
Shortly after the death of Mr. Parsons in 1909, Mr. Meyer 
Bloomfield, '01, was appointed Director of the Bureau. It was 
under his leadership that the greater part of the Bureau's con- 
structive work was accomplished. 

For some time, the Director and his assistants were occupied 
almost wholly in the work of counseling with individuals, but 
as interest in the movement grew, other fields of effort were 
entered. From modest beginnings a varied and extensive group 
of activities developed. Nearly every vocation bureau, or vo- 
cational guidance project now carried on in this country, has 
profited through consultation with the Boston Bureau. Under 
its auspices the work was first organized in the Boston schools. 
Courses in vocational guidance were offered by the Director and 
his assistant for Boston teachers, and in a number of colleges 
and universities in various parts of the country. In addition 
to systematic training of teachers and social workers who de- 
sired to undertake this work, information, suggestion, and help 
have been given to committees and individuals sent from other 
cities to study the Boston experiment. Files of reference mate- 
rial, comprising the only extensive library of vocational guid- 

^ By Roy Willmarth Kelly, Director. Harvard Graduate Magazine. 
26:228-33. December, 1917. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 349 

ance in the United States, have been collected for the use of 
parents, teachers, investigators, students, and others. 

One of the developments of the movement has taken the 
form of "life-career" classes for students in the intermediate 
grades and in secondary schools. In these classes, pupils under- 
take a systematic study of vocations : the conditions of employ- 
ment for young workers; kinds of work to avoid; opportunities 
for continuing one's general education after entering upon em- 
ployment; the extent, relative importance, and stability of oc- 
cupations ; the necessary training and qualifications for the broad 
general fields of employment; surveys of typical, industrial, com- 
mercial, and professional occupations; and other matters af- 
fecting the choice of a vocation or successful entrance upon 
work. Where the life-career class cannot be provided, instruc- 
tion of this nature is often introduced in connection with the 
usual school subjects. 

There was in the beginning, and there still is, a lack of the 
right kind of reading on vocational subjects to place in the 
hands of students or young persons just entering upon a trade 
or profession. Just now the Federal Government needs thou- 
sands of trained men for the shipbuilding industry. There is an 
abundant supply of books dealing with the technical side of the 
industry, text-books for marine architects, manuals for engi- 
neers and builders, theoretical and mathematical treatises on the 
subject, but nothing has been published which describes the in- 
dustry in the light of vocational guidance. Nothing is avail- 
able to which the man engaged in a trade or the school or col- 
lege graduate can turn for information as to where he might 
fit into the shipbuilding industry. There is nothing in print that 
describes the several operations of ship construction in a simple, 
accurate manner, that lists the typical trades represented, or 
that points out the usual opportunities and avenues for advance- 
ment, the hours of work, and the rates of pay. 

In addition to books dealing with the underlying principles 
of vocational guidance, the Bureau has from time to time pub- 
lished special studies giving information of the sort now needed 
with respect to the shipbuilding industry. "Business Employ- 
ments" and "The Shoe Industry," recently prepared by Mr. 
Frederick J. Allen, are of this character. Shorter bulletins in- 
tended for boys and girls of high-school age have been issued 



350 SELECTED ARTICLES 

on confectionery manufacture, architecture, the department 
store, banking, and the machinist trade. 

During the past five years, the Bureau has been actively 
identified with the movement to estabhsh special departments 
for labor maintenance and supervision. As Director of the Vo- 
cation Bureau, Mr. Bloomfield was instrumental in bringing 
about the formation of the Boston Employment Managers' As- 
sociation, the first organization in the United States to meet 
for a systematic study of the selection, promotion, efficiency 
rating, and discharge of employees, and other vitally important 
questions of a similar nature relating to personnel. In com- 
mon with others closely in touch with the industrial world, Mr. 
Bloomfield recognized some time ago that the hope for effective 
vocational guidance was futile without the cooperation of those 
whose duty it was to select employees and who were respon- 
sible for the conditions of employment. 

As Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Bureau, Pro- 
fessor Paul H. Hanus of the Harvard Division of Education 
had been in close touch with its work from the beginning and 
had aided materially in its development. Moreover, the Har- 
vard University Summer School was the first institution in 
the country to undertake a course for teachers in vocational 
guidance, and the Division of Education had more recently 
established several regular courses in the subject. For these 
reasons, it seemed likely that under the auspices of the Division 
of Education, the Bureau would be assured of sympathetic 
leadership and an enlarged opportunity for constructive service. 

The faculty of the Graduate School of Business Adminis- 
tration has voted to cooperate in the management of the Bureau 
by appointing two representatives to confer with the Division 
of Education on all important plans and activities, thus fur- 
nishing a vitally necessary contact with persons interested in 
the study of business and industrial problems. 

The following definite aims have been formulated as the 
basis of the work for the coming year : 

To carry on occupational research and to publish material 
giving information concerning occupations. 

To continue to promote the movement for vocational guid- 
ance and to serve as a centre of information on vocational 
guidance. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 351 

To give personal counsel regarding the problems of choos- 
ing, preparing for, and entering on a vocation. 

To conduct investigations in schools or other institutions, in 
various lines of business, and in the industries with a view to 
determine the need and to suggest plans for vocational guidance. 

To train vocational counselors for service in schools, in in- 
stitutions, and in employment departments. 

To continue, so far as opportunity may offer, the cooperation, 
begun by the Bureau through its connection with Employment 
Managers' Associations, in solving vocational guidance problems 
in industry. 

To aid and cooperate with other vocational guidance organi- 
zations. 

To be of individual and public service in dealing with the 
questions of vocational guidance arising from the present war. 

One of the important functions of the Bureau has been to 
aid school departments and institutions in planning their be- 
ginnings in vocational guidance. Because of the more intimate 
connection with the Division of Education, this assistance ought 
to become more impprtant as time goes on. 

During recent years the movement has been given consid- 
erable attention in the leading educational journals and in the 
lay press. The National Vocational Guidance Association 
through its meetings and its publications has done much toward 
clarifying opinion as to the urgent need for better guidance 
and the proper methods to be followed. Many normal schools 
and universities are offering courses in the subject and the prob- 
lem has been thoughtfully considered in scores of educational 
conferences. In spite of all this, there remain many misconcep- 
tions as to the real aims of vocational guidance, and rather 
widespread reluctance on the part of schools to make anything 
like a thorough-going effort to solve its complex problems. It 
is quite natural that business men and most educators them- 
selves should feel that because teachers are out of touch with 
the "business" world, they are not well qualified to advise pupils 
in regard to opportunities in vocations. The assumption is easily 
made that parents ought to provide all the necessary guidance, 
or that choosing a career is wholly a matter of individual re- 
sponsibility. A right diagnosis of any person's fitness for a 
given occupation seems to demand not only an elaborate study 



352 SELECTED ARTICLES 

of an innumerable array of vocations, but likewise a careful 
analysis of traits of character and personality, and a knowledge 
of individual abilities and aptitudes. 

It is beginning to be recognized that the school has neglected 
many obvious opportunities for directing the pupil's develop- 
ment in such a way as to make his life decisions surer and 
easier. Without in any sense becoming "crassly materialistic" 
or neglecting the aims of general culture, education can offer 
ways and means for acquaintance with the practical world. 
The life-career class, community civics, emphasis upon the vo- 
cational aspects of science, history, geography, and other sub- 
jects, English compositions on vocational topics, practical ex- 
perience in shop work and domestic science, in arts and crafts, 
the Boy Scout and Camp Fire Girl movements, participation in 
debating, athletics, student self-government, management of pub- 
lications and other enterprises, are a few of the means for pre- 
vocational instruction tried and found successful in progressive 
schools. Indeed, principals have found that the attempt to help 
in finding employment for their students and the subsequent 
supervision of the worker was not only practicable, but that it 
reacted in all sorts of favorable ways upon the administration 
of the school. 

Constant emphasis needs to be placed upon the statement that 
effective vocational guidance must be a personal progressive 
matter, taking account of individual development and changing 
interests over a period of years. True guidance can come about 
only through a continuous adaptation of life in the school, in 
industry, and at home, designed to help the boy or girl discover 
his own abihties and limitations and adjust his vocational plans 
accordingly. The time has not yet come, and apparently never 
will, when one or two hours with a counselor, who brings to 
bear his knowledge of human traits and occupational demands 
and uses some standardized system of tests, can be depended 
upon as the sole basis for the choice of a calling. 

Vocational guidance is not synonymous with placement, nor 
is it concerned with the classification of children according to 
types. It does seek to help youth to avoid the false guidance 
of paid impostors, the shackles of narrow environment and one- 
sided development, uncritical judgments based on the real or 
apparent success of others, and false conceptions of social ob- 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 353 

ligation arising from the prevalence of the ideas embodied in 
such terms as "getting ahead of the other fellow," or the "race 
for success." 

It seems to be fairly clear that by the provision of broad 
experiences in the school curriculum, a closer coordination of 
the school and the manifold aspects of social and industrial 
activity, by effective preparation for and guided entrance upon 
work, by promoting vocational guidance in industry through 
properly organized employment departments and enlightened 
methods of personnel management, much of the aimless drift- 
ing through school, through life, and through employment can 
be stopped. It is in these directions that beginnings ought to 
be made, and it is to help in these efforts that the Bureau of 
Vocational Guidance exists. 



FROM SCHOOL TO V^ORK' 

The first step of any community, according to the commit- 
tee's program, ought to be to discover how adequately certain 
basic activities are already being carried on, since it is through 
these that vocational guidance must ultimately be developed. 
They include : adequate school census and attendance records ; 
psychological tests to aid in revealing individual ability; school 
scholarships ; school social case work as an aid to handicapped 
homes ; regular physical examination and medical care ; and ade- 
quate administration of child labor and compulsory attendance 
laws. With these properly functioning, there should be a care- 
ful survey of the essential characteristics of the community's 
industries and of its educational facilities, as well as of exist- 
ing agencies for vocational guidance and placement. 

The next step is to set up the machinery foi coordinating 
the various activities essential to guidance. The committee 
recommends a central vocational guidance and employment de- 
partment under the board of education, with a director respon- 
sible to the superintendent at the head. Within this department 
there might well be, it thinks, a central advisory committee 
representing social and health agencies, employers' associations, 
labor organizations, parents' associations and others as a means 

1 Survey. 43:745-6. March 13, ig20. 



354 SELECTED ARTICLES 

of correlating the attendance, census and other school work 
with that of outside agencies. Within the department there 
should be the following divisions : permanent census and at- 
tendance ; educational scholarships ; psychological service ; in- 
formation, research and training; and guidance, placement and 
employment certification. Each community would have to settle 
for itself such questions as size of staff and precise method of 
administration. 

The real work of guidance would fall to the last of the di- 
visions named above. Counsellors, working under its direction, 
ought to be provided in sufficient numbers to give intensive serv- 
ice to children approaching the time of differentiation or with- 
drawal from school. These counsellors should have knowledge 
of the child based on (i) personal acquaintance, (2) a cumu- 
lative record including physical and psychological reports, 
teachers' estimate and school record which should follow the 
child through school and be filed in the central bureau at his 
withdrawal, and (3) social facts gathered from the attendance 
officers, school case workers or other agencies. Familiarity 
with various educational facilities in the community is also essen- 
tial for the counsellor. Finally, he should have knowledge of 
industry based on (i) a general understanding of the factors 
involved in industrial relationship,, (2) information about local 
occupational opportunities from the Division of Information, 
Research and Training, and (3) personal contact with employers 
and processes. 

In a smaller community, or even in the high schools of a 
large community, the counsellors might naturally combine guid- 
ance with actual placement. There should also be a system of 
replacement and follow-up for the first few years of the child's 
industrial life. A certificate for each job is strongly recom- 
mended by the committee, and medical examination ought to 
precede each issuance of a certificate. 

The evaluation of the success of the work should depend 
more upon its quality than its quantity, and this should be a 
task of the division of information, research and training. It 
is not unreasonable to expect, says the committee, that an or- 
ganization such as is here outlined would (i) increase the per- 
centage of children who remain in school after the compulsory 
attendance age, (2) increase the number entering specialized 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 355 

vocational schools, (3) make possible the classification of chil- 
dren for instruction according to their innate ability, (4) stim- 
ulate the development of additional needed courses within the 
curriculum, (5) decrease the number of children entering and 
remaining in jobs which offer no incentive to advancement, (6) 
increase the number who find opportunity for such advance- 
ment, (7) increase the demand for vocational information by 
teachers, students and parents, and (8) stimulate the interest 
of the entire community in the solution of the problem. 



VOCATIONAL STUDY' 

Because naturally the thing that the average individual is 
most interested in is himself, because I had seen so many young 
people come to the university and flounder around for several 
years without finding a real aim or a serious purpose to direct 
their college work, and because I had seen others waste years 
in preparation for something for which they were not fitted or 
in which they were not keenly interested, I decided to abandon 
many of the conventional rhetoric themes in favor of a voca- 
tional study. My idea was to have each student make a rather 
thoroughgoing analysis of some vocation with special reference 
to himself. 

The plan for the experiment was comparatively simple. It 
started with a questionnaire, the purpose of which was to get 
that background of the student which might affect his vocational 
inclination. The information included the size and type of his 
home town, his high school, the subjects studied in order of his 
preference and his grading in them, vocational training and 
experience, why he worked and why he quit, the use he made 
of his earnings, talents and training possessed which might help 
to support him, the occupations of his father, brothers, mother, 
sisters, and uncles, his first and second choice of an occupation, 
whether or not his parents approved and were willing to assist 
him financially, his physical condition, and interests in sports, 
amusements, and organizations. 

Short themes followed, answering such questions as : Why 

1 From article "Roast Beef Instead of Hash," by George Starr Lasher, 
University of Chicago High School. English Journal. 6:664-76. 
December, 1917. 



356 SELECTED ARTICLES 

did you come to the University of Michigan? What influenced 
you in your choice of an occupation? What is your purpose in 
choosing that particular occupation? What do you actually 
know about the vocation chosen and how did you secure that 
information? Just how seriously and how thoroughly have you 
considered the question? What should one know about the 
profession he expects to enter? 

A questionnaire was then given in which concrete in- 
formation about the profession was demanded. This had the 
double purpose of getting definite facts as to the knowledge of 
the students with regard to their intended vocations and of mak- 
ing them realize how little they actually knew concerning the 
work they purposed entering. The questionnaire covered actual 
duties at the start, duties when established, the demand for the 
work, opportunity of getting a start, best location for a start, 
necessary and desirable training in school and elsewhere, appren- 
iceship, necessary professional development after graduation, 
cost of equipment at the start, size of income at the start, rate 
of increase, size after five years, maximum and average, neces- 
sary standard of living and the cost, opportunities to earn 
money indirectly, social compensations, opportunities for civic 
responsibilities and social service, physical, mental, moral, and 
social qualities required, demand for executive and initiative abil- 
ity, working conditions as to hours, routine, exposure, dangers, 
health and morals, chance for daily recreation, vocations, and 
avocations, ease of changing business location, opportunity for 
specialization, advancement, change within occupation or to 
other similar occupations, restrictions upon expression of per- 
sonal opinion and ways of living, other disadvantages, qualities 
possessed favorable to success, personal handicaps that must be 
overcome, fundamental ethics of the profession, and what has 
been done by leaders in the profession for the betterment of 
society. 

As might be expected, very few had an adequate knowledge 
of the demands of their vocation, but the questionnaire had the 
desired effect of directing their investigation. It also aided them 
in filling the next assignment, which was to make out a course 
of study to follow during their university life and justify their 
selections. Next they prepared an exhaustive bibliography in- 
cluding lists of books, magazine articles, and pamphlets in the 
library dealing with their professions. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 357 

The final assignment in the vocational study was the prep- 
aration of a long theme discussing a vocation in its relation to 
the individual writer and carefully analyzing its demands and 
the individual's ability to meet them. Concrete information 
along the lines suggested by the second questionnaire was in- 
sisted upon. The minimum for the theme was 2,500 words. 
Several weeks previous to the date on which the theme was 
due a thoroughgoing analytical outline was handed in. This 
was criticized, corrected carefully, and then used as a basis 
for the theme. Accompanying the theme was a descriptive or 
annotated bibliography representing a minimum of fifteen hours 
of reading. In addition to this reading, the students were urged 
to talk with leaders in the profession chosen and get informa- 
tion and assistance from them. I made no attempt to influence 
their choice or to advise the students, as my knowledge of the 
various vocations is frankly superficial. I merely directed the 
work, helping the student to find suitable material when his own 
efforts failed. My idea was to make each individual feel that 
he had a special problem and was responsible for working it 
out. 



RESTORING CRIPPLES TO THE INDUSTRIAL 
RANKS ' 

Congress, in the closing hours of the sixty-sixth session, 
passed two notable acts. First, in response to a request from 
the Federal Board for Vocational Education for $90,303,000 for 
its current budget, an appropriation of $90,000,000 was author- 
ized, practically the only estimate which was not vigorously 
slashed by the law-makers in their drive for economy. Sec- 
ondly, in response to an appeal from the nation at large. Con- 
gress passed one of the most significant bills of the session ; 
namely, the Industrial Rehabilitation Bill, and placed its execu- 
tion with the Federal Board for Vocational Education. In 
short, the result of a thoro investigation of the Federal Board 
was to inspire Congress with sufficient confidence in the mem- 
bers of the Board to place in their hands both the execution 
of an epochmaking program for training the cripples of indus- 

^ By R. T. Fisher, Chief of the Federal Board for Vocational Educa- 
tion. Current Opinion. 69:534-5. October, 1920. 



358 SELECTED ARTICLES 

try, as well as to give the Board practically the entire amount 
of the budget they had requested. 

Rehabilitation of our ex-service men has been rightly insisted 
upon as a debt of honor ; but do we realize that four or five 
times as many men are disabled every year in the "battlefields 
of industry" fighting for a living, as were disabled in the Amer- 
ican Expeditionary Forces fighting for the principles of democ- 
racy? After all, is not the right to earn a decent living one of 
the principles of democracy? The number of persons, a quarter 
of a million, injured annually through industrial accidents in the 
United States is appalling. During the nineteen months of war, 
we had 48,000 men who were killed or died of wounds in France. 
During that same period, there were killed by accident in Amer- 
ica 126,000 persons, of which number 35,000 occurred in industry. 

In point of dollars, re-training the industrially disabled men 
means an increased productive value to the nation of amounts 
heretofore little understood. I believe we are easily within con- 
servative estimates in saying that any seriously disabled man 
who can be vocationally rehabilitated will have his earning 
capacity increased by a total of at least $12,500 for the remaining 
period of his life and that his increased productive value to the 
nation will easily reach $50,000. .The Federal Board for Voca- 
tional Education is just now gathering data on this subject; but 
assuming that not more than one-fifth of the permanently dis- 
abled require re-training, we would have 50,000 men a year to 
be trained. If each re-trained man returns to the productive 
value of the nation an average of $50,000 in the remainder of 
his life, the increment accruing to the wealth of the nation 
would amount to two and one-half billion dollars. 

This enormous figure, be it remembered, is the estimated 
result of training those persons crippled each year in industry. 
When the program shall have beeii thorogoing and nation-wide, 
only the most optimistic prophets can conceive its possibilities. 
There is no field today where the State or nation can obtain 
so large an economic return on an investment as in rehabilitat- 
ing the disabled of industry; so that, instead of having depend- 
ent consumers and industrial pensioners, we shall have inde- 
pendent producers and contented citizens. We thus come to 
realize that the undertaking is a piece of advanced social legis- 
lation looking to the end that all men shall be producers in 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 359 

proportion to their ability, and that neither rich nor poor shall 
be permitted to become parasites. 

The Act of Congress approved June 2, 1920 does not pro- 
vide for the support of the industrially disabled who are under- 
going vocational training; but purposes to standardize, super- 
vize and encourage industrial rehabilitation in the various States. 
The problem must always be largely a State problem, because 
the number disabled in any State bears a definite ratio to the 
number of persons engaged in the industries of that State. The 
State which is responsible for the most industrial cripples is 
likewise reaping corresponding profits from the industries in 
that State which are responsible for those cripples. Conse- 
quently, the funds for Industrial Rehabilitation should come 
chiefly from sources of State taxation, assuming that the State 
will, in turn, derive taxes for that purpose from the profits of 
those industries which are responsible for the accidents. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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